On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:55:55 +0000 (UTC), Peter Campbell Smith
wrote:

Martin Edwards wrote in news:kgz8m.17902$m%4.11960
:

Another favourite is Kingston, Surrey. Oh no it isn't.

As a relative newcomer to London (a mere 30 years ago) I'm still bemused by
the fact that people in Kingston, Sutton, Croydon et al do not regard
themselves as being in London and often do not even know that they are.

That is because they're not in London, they're in Greater London.

snip

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

wrote in message

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

As I said, I do write and speak the codes properly myself, which can
throw people somewhat. But I also use 8-digit numbers from my
landline, so it all makes sense to me! (Less so I suppose to those
who only use mobiles.)

It would be instructive to know what proportion of within-London
calls are dialled from London landlines as 11 digits. Rather a lot, I
fear.

Probably so -- is there any (price) penalty for so doing?

Pretty minimal extra dialling effort.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:31:29 +0100, Charles Ellson
wrote:

On 19 Jul 2009 23:10:17 GMT, James Farrar
wrote:

What's a Lord Lieutenant?

The monarch's representative in an English or Welsh county (as defined
in the Lieutenancies Act 1997), a Scottish city or an area in Scotland
designated by an Order in Council; in the City of London (including
the Temples) the function is held by a commission presided over by the
capital's Lord Mayor. When the bomb drops and destroys central
government, (s)he takes over; until then, (s)he attends ceremonies,
banquets and bar-mitzvahs with or on behalf of the monarch.

Scottish cities don't have one, the monarch's representative is the
Lord Provost (not sure if they take over if the bomb drops though).

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:07:18 +0100, wrote:

On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:31:29 +0100, Charles Ellson
wrote:

On 19 Jul 2009 23:10:17 GMT, James Farrar
wrote:

What's a Lord Lieutenant?

The monarch's representative in an English or Welsh county (as defined
in the Lieutenancies Act 1997), a Scottish city or an area in Scotland
designated by an Order in Council; in the City of London (including
the Temples) the function is held by a commission presided over by the
capital's Lord Mayor. When the bomb drops and destroys central
government, (s)he takes over; until then, (s)he attends ceremonies,
banquets and bar-mitzvahs with or on behalf of the monarch.

Scottish cities don't have one,

pantomime
Oh yes they do!
/pantomime

the monarch's representative is the
Lord Provost

That is because in Scotland the Lords Provost are simultaneously the
Lords Lieutenant :-

"(2) The Lord Provost of each of the cities of Aberdeen, Dundee,
Edinburgh and Glasgow is, by virtue of his office, lord-lieutenant for
that city."
[s1(2) Lieutenancies Act 1997]

(not sure if they take over if the bomb drops though).

Proximity might be a factor.

Charles Ellson wrote in
:

On 19 Jul 2009 22:37:41 GMT, James Farrar
wrote:

John B wrote in news:7e4d44a7-3974-43c8-883a-
:

doesn't define government or geographical boundaries.

The two are not identical.

They can be.

Yes, they can be, but in the real UK the set of government boundaries is
not identical to the set of geographic boundaries.

John B wrote in
:

On Jul 20, 1:55*pm, Peter Campbell Smith
wrote:
Another favourite is Kingston, Surrey. *Oh no it isn't.

As a relative newcomer to London (a mere 30 years ago) I'm still
bemused
by
the fact that people in Kingston, Sutton, Croydon et al do not regard
themselves as being in London and often do not even know that they
are.
*
I'd be reasonably sure that if you stopped 100 people in the streets
of those boroughs and asked which county they were in, 90+ would say
'Surrey', and probably 50+ wouldn't believe you if you told them they
were in London.

It seems to me that you have to get quite close to central London, at
least south of the river, before the locals regard themselves as
living 'in London'.

Hmm. Kingston definitely; Croydon and Sutton less so (or at least, I
don't think Croydonians view themselves as in Surrey - whether they
view themselves as Londoners is another question...)

At least part of that is down to the fact that Kingston and Croydon, on
the ground, are quite clearly self-contained towns in their own right.
Bromley is the same. I don't know Sutton well enough to know if that
falls into the same category, though I suspect it is as the key to these
things seems to be whether the place is on the Underground or not.

{Do you like the way I brought us back on-topic? ;-) }

Charles Ellson wrote in
:

On 19 Jul 2009 23:10:17 GMT, James Farrar
wrote:

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in
:

James Farrar 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)

It exists. The Local Government Act abolished only its council.

So where is the Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex?

What's a Lord Lieutenant?

The monarch's representative in an English or Welsh county (as defined
in the Lieutenancies Act 1997), a Scottish city or an area in Scotland
designated by an Order in Council; in the City of London (including
the Temples) the function is held by a commission presided over by the
capital's Lord Mayor. When the bomb drops and destroys central
government, (s)he takes over; until then, (s)he attends ceremonies,
banquets and bar-mitzvahs with or on behalf of the monarch.

A total non-entity, then. No wonder I had no idea what one was - and I'm
interested in politics!

Abigail Brady wrote:
On Jul 20, 3:47 pm, Martin Edwards wrote:
It was never properly included. Postcodes were trialled in Watford and
we were told from the outset not to put the county name.

Yeah, that's perhaps because Watford was a major post town not
requiring a county. There were 110 of these (http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Postal_county#Usage ) has a list.

The 'canonical' address for everywhere outside these 110 post towns
did have a "postal county" until 1996. These matched no given set of
ceremonial, geographic, or historic counties, including Middlesex (two
detached segments in north-west London, including Spelthorne which was
added to Surrey, but not including Potters Bar, which was added to
Hertfordshire at the same time), Merseyside, North Humberside, but no
Greater Manchester, Rutland, or Huntingdonshire.

A bit weirdly, recently, the "former postal county" field in one of
the post office databases has been changed to 'Rutland' for LE15 and
part of LE16. This rewrites history for the sake of some campaigners
who found it offensive that they were continuing to get mailshots from
people including 'Leicestershire' in their address - it would have
been better in my opinion to cease supplying the field entirely, or
make it much harder to get hold of, in the hope that people supplying
such mailshots would start using the canonical addresses! This is of
course making it much harder to justify the continued existence of
'North Humberside' and 'South Humberside' in that database, so expect
to see those gone soon too.

--
Abi

Phew! You know a bit about this. I should only like to point out that,
at the time, there was only one post town, and we were it. :-)

--
As through this world I've rambled, I've met plenty of funny men,
Some rob you with a sixgun, some with a fountain pen.

Woody Guthrie

Charles Ellson wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2009 12:55:55 +0000 (UTC), Peter Campbell Smith
wrote:

Martin Edwards wrote in news:kgz8m.17902$m%4.11960
@newsfe25.ams2:

Another favourite is Kingston, Surrey. Oh no it isn't.
As a relative newcomer to London (a mere 30 years ago) I'm still bemused by
the fact that people in Kingston, Sutton, Croydon et al do not regard
themselves as being in London and often do not even know that they are.

That is because they're not in London, they're in Greater London.

snip

Conversely, I frequently have to tell people in Birmingham, where I now
live, that Watford is not in London, though it is actually in
Hertfordshire and about thirty miles from the Square Mile. Many also
think it is the same place as Watford Gap, which is named after a
village of 400 people in Northants.

--
As through this world I've rambled, I've met plenty of funny men,
Some rob you with a sixgun, some with a fountain pen.

Woody Guthrie

In message , at 20:13:24 on
Mon, 20 Jul 2009, Charles Ellson remarked:

There's an EU Directive that says all numbers must be portable.

I know, but the way OFCOM talks about them seems to suggest that they
use a different phrase for landlines.

Fixed line.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/cond...iew/statement/

--
Roland Perry