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In message
, at
03:01:54 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Mizter T remarked:
*Total nonsense* - postal counties are not required any more

By whom? As recounted earlier, many web forms insist on a County.
--
Roland Perry

HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
 

On Jul 19, 11:12*am, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
03:01:54 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Mizter T remarked:

*Total nonsense* - postal counties are not required any more

By whom? As recounted earlier, many web forms insist on a County.

Good point. I was of course talking about what the Royal Mail
requires, as opposed to what software developers think the postal
system requires.

(Readers should also note that the above snippet of my message is
rather out of context to the whole point I was trying to convey, which
is that postal counties are not a required part of the address any
more, but are not 'prohibited' either.)

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On Jul 19, 10:55*am, Mizter T wrote:
Lots of places have signs but no distinct government. I think I've seen
"England" on signs, and even "London" is rather complex concept to pin
down as a specific "thing".

England exists, legally, though - e.g. the Department of [English]
Health.

Rubbish - see Charles Ellson's answer. The Department of Health has a
whole number of UK-wide responsibilities as well as its (primary)
responsibility for healthcare in England and Wales.

ITYM 'in England', not 'in England and Wales'.

England does of course exist legally - though there are a number of
areas where a reference to England is actually an abbreviated
reference to England *and* Wales (e.g. reference to contracts being
enforced according to "English law" in "English courts"). In the past
one could have said that constitutionally Wales was basically part of
England, but with devolution this description would be less apt.

That's why I used the DoH as an example, as Englandandwales is a
single entity for most legal and non-devolved governmental purposes.

London is easy: the Corporation's area is the City of London, the GLA
area is Greater London, and there isn't anything else.

Yes there is. There's the London postal district - and there's a whole
number of places within Greater London that are outwith the London
postal district (e.g. in the south east fringes there's lots of places
with "Bromley" as the post town and hence BRx postcodes

Is there a London postal district? AIUI, there are various postcodes
that fall within Greater London, including E ones, BR ones, and so on.
Some of these sorting offices also cover areas outside London.

Similarly, I'm sure there are pizza establishments in outer London
that deliver to Hertfordshire, Essex, Surrey and Kent, and pizza
establishments in Herts, Essex, Surrey and Kent that deliver to
London.

- back when
the postal county was properly included as part of the address, these
places would have had Kent in their address too, and many people still
continue to include it).

And back when they were in Kent, they were in Kent. This isn't
relevant now.

Sewardstone, near Epping Forest, meanwhile is outside Greater London
but has a London postcode - E4.

It has a postcode that's primarily used within Greater London, yes.
I'm surprised by that actually - how did the PO's E district get so
far out...?

The London telephone dialling code 020 covers a larger area than the
London postal district, including many places outside of Greater
London. Meanwhile other places on the edges of Greater London have
dialling codes other than 020 London.

My father lives in India and has a +44 20 phone number. My office is
in Islington and has an +1 646 phone number. Are BT phone numbers even
still /supposed/ to be geographical?

The Met Police District used to cover an area larger than Greater
London, but this was rationalised when the GLA was created and these
areas were transferred to the appropriate home counties police force.

ie this isn't relevant now.

The London fares (aka Travelcard) zones of course cover an area larger
than Greater London - and that's the case even if we're only talking
about the 'proper' zones 1-6.

'The TfL zonal area'. Yes, OK, I'll give you that one, ish.

I think there's a number of other examples where an official or quasi-
official body of one sort or another defines London in different ways.

Examples (from the present day)?

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

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On Jul 19, 4:54*am, Charles Ellson wrote:

[snip]

There are also areas outwith the capital (e.g. Hampstead Heath, Queens
Park) which are its responsibility, not that of the containing local
authority; this extends to having their own constabulary patrolling
Hampstead Heath.

There you're taking the City of London to be the "capital". There is
however no officially or legally defined "capital" of the UK, nor
indeed of England - so whether the capital is specifically the City of
London, or some wider notion of London, is itself something of a moot
point. I'd suggest that one could argue for a wider definition of
London being the capital 'by convention' (as opposed to 'by law'), not
least because government is centred on Westminster as opposed to the
square mile - however there's never going to be a definitive answer to
this, because "capital" is not defined.

The UK is not alone here - for example France has no (official)
capital city either.

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On Jul 19, 11:07*am, Mizter T wrote:
On Jul 19, 7:43*am, Martin Edwards wrote:

John B wrote:
On Jul 17, 8:52 pm, Bruce wrote:
There is a huge variation around the country in the local authorities'
requirements for minicabs. *I have a friend who use to run a minicab
business in Aylesbury, but now runs a similar business in Middlesex.

Time traveller, is he?

(for m.t.u-t'ers, Middlesex hasn't existed for 44 years)

Right. *Yet people still give it as a postal address, even though you
are not supposed to give either district or county. *Another favourite
is Kingston, Surrey. *Oh no it isn't.

Oh yes it can be.

As I said above, please show me where including former postal counties
is specifically prohibited by Royal Mail - any reference or cite from
an official document would do.

You won't be able to, because Royal Mail do not prohibit its usage,
nor indeed do they officially discourage it either.

The Royal Mail is happy for information that is "postally not
required" to appear as part of an address, just so long as the
required information is there as well.

That's fairly ridiculous hair-splitting.

You're not *banned* from writing on an envelope "I love John
Prescott", or even "Postmen are lazy".

But you're not *supposed* to write them on an envelope as if they were
part of the address.

[as a side note, I utterly hate American-designed websites which
insist on you putting a county in the address field... especially the
ones that force you to pick from a list a county that doesn't
exist...]

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

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On Jul 19, 10:54*am, "Recliner" wrote:
I'm still forced to use Middlesex as part of my address by Web forms
that have a mandatory 'County' field.

As in, they give you a drop-box that contains 'Middlesex' but not
'Greater London'? That's pretty ****poor of them, if so.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

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In message
, at
03:32:10 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, John B remarked:
My father lives in India and has a +44 20 phone number. My office is
in Islington and has an +1 646 phone number.

Are they VoIP?

Are BT phone numbers even still /supposed/ to be geographical?

If they are traditional landlines, then each exchange has a specific
area it covers. But it's been possible for a generation to get "out of
area" numbers if you paid enough.
--
Roland Perry

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Mizter T wrote:

The London telephone dialling code 020 covers a larger area than the
London postal district, including many places outside of Greater
London. Meanwhile other places on the edges of Greater London have
dialling codes other than 020 London.

But try convincing many Londoners that the area code is 020, not 020x :-)

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

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In message
, at
03:37:24 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, John B remarked:
I utterly hate American-designed websites which
insist on you putting a county in the address field...

The one I encountered this morning is very likely to be UK-designed
website. We have ignorant developers here too :(
--
Roland Perry

HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
 

On Jul 19, 11:57*am, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
03:32:10 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, John B remarked:

My father lives in India and has a +44 20 phone number. My office is
in Islington and has an +1 646 phone number.

Are they VoIP?

Yup.

Are BT phone numbers even still /supposed/ to be geographical?

If they are traditional landlines, then each exchange has a specific
area it covers. But it's been possible for a generation to get "out of
area" numbers if you paid enough.

Haha, so there's no technical reason for having area codes any more,
but they force you to stick with the historical codes by default so
they can sting people on upgrades? Yup, that's the BT I know and love,
for fairly twisted values of 'love'.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org