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On Jul 19, 2:36*pm, Roland Perry wrote: In message , at 06:08:51 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Mizter T remarked: But try convincing many Londoners that the area code is 020, not 020x :-) I notice it, but it's not really something that bothers me. Some people seem like they're going to implode with fury when they see or hear the code being incorrectly used - so perhaps the whole serves a useful purpose in identifying those who can't keep things in proportion! It's a bit like calling the driving car on a Pendolino a "locomotive", or a light engine a "train". Different inaccuracies annoy different people. I must admit that neither of those inaccuracies really bother me either! 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.) |
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In message
Bruce wrote: On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:55:10 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T wrote: 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. Wales was England's first colony. Polson displaying his ignorance again. -- Graeme Wall This address not read, substitute trains for rail Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail |
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On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:57:33 +0100 someone who may be "Peter Masson"
wrote this:- The Royal Mail give seven mistakes which can make a postal address incorrect, of which one is 'Do not put the Post town in lower case.' Yet things where this "mistake" has been made get through, the majority of postal items I see. Do not punctuate Nothing wrong with that. Do not use the words 'near' or 'by' (I suppose you have to if you are sending something to Stoke by Clare or Stoke-by-Nayland) Ditto. Do not leave the Postcode incomplete So they don't want people to be helpful by supplying as much information as they have. No wonder they are in trouble. -- David Hansen, Edinburgh I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54 |
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On 19 July, 16:46, David Hansen
wrote: On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:57:33 +0100 someone who may be "Peter Masson" wrote this:- The Royal Mail give seven mistakes which can make a postal address incorrect, of which one is 'Do not put the Post town in lower case.' Yet things where this "mistake" has been made get through, the majority of postal items I see. Do not punctuate Nothing wrong with that. Do not use the words 'near' or 'by' (I suppose you have to if you are sending something to Stoke by Clare or Stoke-by-Nayland) Ditto. Do not leave the Postcode incomplete So they don't want people to be helpful by supplying as much information as they have. No wonder they are in trouble. While I always address things correctly*, post town in capitals etc, I do think that their rules are a bit Royal Mailcentric. For example, unless the advice has changed, the postcode always has to be last, on a line of its own, even if addressed from overseas. That may help it find the right place once it gets to the UK, but doesn't really help the post office of the country where you post it know which country to send it to. *And I'm about the only person I know who ever does. |
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Peter Masson wrote:
"David Hansen" wrote An example of a correct (fictional) address is TFR 12 Main Street Edinburgh EH0 0EH Incorrect (sorry). The Royal Mail give seven mistakes which can make a postal address incorrect, of which one is 'Do not put the Post town in lower case.' The others a Do not indent the address Do not omit the name or building number Do not punctuate What about a letter to Westward Ho!? Do not use the words 'near' or 'by' (I suppose you have to if you are sending something to Stoke by Clare or Stoke-by-Nayland) Or Kingston near Lewes. Do not leave the Postcode incomplete Do not underline or write anything beneath the Postcode. Peter -- Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK |
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In message , Peter Masson
writes There is also a good practical reason for including the unnecessary county in a postal address. Letters addressed to CHISLEHURST BR7 5xx have not infrequently arrived late with a spurious Bristol postmark. This does't seem to happen when they are addressed CHISLEHURST Kent BR7 5xx There are also cases where two post towns in different parts of the country share a name (Ashford, Richmond, etc). While the correct postcode does differentiate, inclusion of the county name does reduce the risk of misrouting. Bearing in mind that the routing is done electronically by 'outbound postcode' only, ie. the first portion, BR7 in your example, I fail to see how adding the county can have any effect on this at all as it's not even read by the system. I've been involved with a cleansing exercise to Royal Mail preferred for an organisation I'm involved with (which mainly involved removal of counties) and have yet to be made aware of any problems with mail routing in the past 2 years. -- Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building. You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK (please use the reply to address for email) |
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"Steve Fitzgerald" ] wrote in message ... In message , Peter Masson writes There is also a good practical reason for including the unnecessary county in a postal address. Letters addressed to CHISLEHURST BR7 5xx have not infrequently arrived late with a spurious Bristol postmark. This does't seem to happen when they are addressed CHISLEHURST Kent BR7 5xx There are also cases where two post towns in different parts of the country share a name (Ashford, Richmond, etc). While the correct postcode does differentiate, inclusion of the county name does reduce the risk of misrouting. Bearing in mind that the routing is done electronically by 'outbound postcode' only, ie. the first portion, BR7 in your example, I fail to see how adding the county can have any effect on this at all as it's not even read by the system. If the electronic reader fails to register the postcode (especially if the address is handwritten) and the item is rejected for manual sorting, it is only too easy for the Mk1 human eyeball to misread BR7 5xx as Bristol. Peter |
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In message , Peter Masson
writes There is also a good practical reason for including the unnecessary county in a postal address. Letters addressed to CHISLEHURST BR7 5xx have not infrequently arrived late with a spurious Bristol postmark. This does't seem to happen when they are addressed CHISLEHURST Kent BR7 5xx There are also cases where two post towns in different parts of the country share a name (Ashford, Richmond, etc). While the correct postcode does differentiate, inclusion of the county name does reduce the risk of misrouting. Bearing in mind that the routing is done electronically by 'outbound postcode' only, ie. the first portion, BR7 in your example, I fail to see how adding the county can have any effect on this at all as it's not even read by the system. If the electronic reader fails to register the postcode (especially if the address is handwritten) and the item is rejected for manual sorting, it is only too easy for the Mk1 human eyeball to misread BR7 5xx as Bristol. The Mk1 eyeball can't differentiate between an S and an R? It needs replacing with a less defective version then. -- Steve Fitzgerald has now left the building. You will find him in London's Docklands, E16, UK (please use the reply to address for email) |
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Recliner wrote:
I'm still forced to use Middlesex as part of my address by Web forms that have a mandatory 'County' field. Put "London" or "Greater London" and it will get through just as fast. |
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Mizter T wrote:
No - the official Royal Mail requirement to include postal counties continued past the creation of Greater London. I'll try and find the date when the requirement was dropped. It was in 1996. Most English postal counties *did* change in the local government reorganisations of the 1960s & 1970s, with the following exceptions: * London was not changed due to stretched finances in the 1960s. * Middlesex continued to be used except for Potters Bar which was move to Hertfordshire. * Herefordshire and Worcestershire were kept separate. * Humberside was split into North Humberside and South Humberside. * Greater Manchester was not introduced in the 1970s because of potential confusion with the "Manchester" postal town. The E4 postcode is part of the London postal district. "Greater London" has absolutely *no meaning* whatsoever in a postal address sense - cast-iron fact. Not totally. Since 1996 the county field has been optional and people have been able to use what they like, and "Greater London" (or even just "London") is a valid county entry. The Church of England's Diocese of London only covers part of Greater London (and includes at least one bit outside of Greater London, Spelthorne), That's because the Diocese is named after the City of London, which is the bishop's seat, not the whole metropolis. |
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Mizter T wrote:
You watch even less television than I do then! BBC television used to cover London as part of the South East region (perhaps officially called "London & South East", I dunno), but in 2001 this was split - London became a region in its own right, whilst the South East region swallowed a transmitter from the South region and started a new regional television news service that comes I think from Tunbridge Wells. Whilst true the London region broadcasts go some way beyond the boundaries - my parents in Epsom have always had London regional television for instance - and I *think* the scope of regional news reflects this. (Although regional political coverage is pretty much just the GLA and London Boroughs.) |
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On 19 July, 20:52, "Tim Roll-Pickering" T.C.Roll-
wrote: Mizter T wrote: No - the official Royal Mail requirement to include postal counties continued past the creation of Greater London. I'll try and find the date when the requirement was dropped. It was in 1996. Most English postal counties *did* change in the local government reorganisations of the 1960s & 1970s, with the following exceptions: * London was not changed due to stretched finances in the 1960s. * Middlesex continued to be used except for Potters Bar which was move to Hertfordshire. * Herefordshire and Worcestershire were kept separate. * Humberside was split into North Humberside and South Humberside. * Greater Manchester was not introduced in the 1970s because of potential confusion with the "Manchester" postal town. The E4 postcode is part of the London postal district. "Greater London" has absolutely *no meaning* whatsoever in a postal address sense - cast-iron fact. Not totally. Since 1996 the county field has been optional and people have been able to use what they like, and "Greater London" (or even just "London") is a valid county entry. The Royal Mail advice long before 1996 was that the county was not needed for obvious large towns and cities, if at all, and that would surely include London. In fact, the county could be inferred to be optional by the fact that they focussed on the importance of the post town and postcode. You seem to have implied that something was required after LONDON until 1996, but it definitely wasn't. I can't remember checking the Royal Mail advice before the mid 1980s, but the advice then seems to have been almost identical to now except that they've stopped even mentioning the county. I can't remember it being insisted on. |
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Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Mizter T wrote: No - the official Royal Mail requirement to include postal counties continued past the creation of Greater London. I'll try and find the date when the requirement was dropped. It was in 1996. Most English postal counties *did* change in the local government reorganisations of the 1960s & 1970s, with the following exceptions: * London was not changed due to stretched finances in the 1960s. * Middlesex continued to be used except for Potters Bar which was move to Hertfordshire. * Herefordshire and Worcestershire were kept separate. * Humberside was split into North Humberside and South Humberside. Not that many locals would use the word in their addresses, especially after it was put out of its misery in 1996. One of the arguments its (few) supporters used was that some local companies had put Humberside in their names. Then someone else looked at how many had Yorkshire or Lincolnshire in their names... -- Arthur Figgis |
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On Jul 19, 7:30*am, "tim....." wrote:
"Roland Perry" wrote in message ... In message , at 04:00:47 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. And they are well known to mean very little. By people who can tell the difference. I am well versed in the current telecom situation and I haven't the faintest idea what number range is allocated to stand alone VOIP connections. I doubt that the man in the street even knows what we are talking about. tim VoIP numbers with accomodation addresses are very useful in giving one a virtial presence. I have +44 23 (Portsmounth), +44 1243 (Chichester), +44 113 (Leeds), +44 7 (UK Mobile), + 1 714 (Anaheim), +1 310 (Beverly Hills), and +1 (775) (Reno) numbers. Family Friends and business contacts can all reach me easily, and inexpensively, with local numbers regardless of where I may at any given ttime. |
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In uk.transport.london message ebf97407-1b18-47b0-8820-1c4ef6dc7169@c1g
2000yqi.googlegroups.com, Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:37:24, John B posted: [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...] Go via http://spaceweather.com/flybys/index.php, look via "London, City of" and you will find Cockfosters and the Finchley/Barnet area, as well as London. -- (c) John Stockton, nr London UK. BP7, Delphi 3 & 2006. URL:http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/ TP/BP/Delphi/&c., FAQqy topics & links; URL:http://www.bancoems.com/CompLangPascalDelphiMisc-MiniFAQ.htm clpdmFAQ; NOT URL:http://support.codegear.com/newsgroups/: news:borland.* Guidelines |
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On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:33:12 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote: 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 It was official according to whichever monarch changed it from Winchester in the 12th(?) century. There is more to English Law than mere statutes. - so whether the capital is specifically the City of London, or some wider notion of London, "Some wider notion" of London is not a city thus cannot be the capital city. 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 The location of the government is irrelevant, other countries have their governments outwith their capitals. 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. So that's about 436,000 gouv.fr web pages you need to alter. The year 987 or thereabouts would probably get you at least one mark in a French primary school exam. |
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Steve Fitzgerald ] wrote on 19 July 2009 19:02:39 ...
In message , Peter Masson writes There is also a good practical reason for including the unnecessary county in a postal address. Letters addressed to CHISLEHURST BR7 5xx have not infrequently arrived late with a spurious Bristol postmark. This does't seem to happen when they are addressed CHISLEHURST Kent BR7 5xx There are also cases where two post towns in different parts of the country share a name (Ashford, Richmond, etc). While the correct postcode does differentiate, inclusion of the county name does reduce the risk of misrouting. Bearing in mind that the routing is done electronically by 'outbound postcode' only, ie. the first portion, BR7 in your example, I fail to see how adding the county can have any effect on this at all as it's not even read by the system. If the electronic reader fails to register the postcode (especially if the address is handwritten) and the item is rejected for manual sorting, it is only too easy for the Mk1 human eyeball to misread BR7 5xx as Bristol. The Mk1 eyeball can't differentiate between an S and an R? The problem is that the Mk1 brain interprets BR... as Bristol, forgetting that Bristol is BS. Indeed, I find it surprising that, as a major city, Bristol wasn't allocated BR, which would have meant that the mere suburb of Bromley (though it's my birthplace!) would have used, say, BM. -- Richard J. (to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address) |
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On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:32:10 -0700 (PDT), John B
wrote: 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. Not since 1978 through the successive effects of the Welsh Language Act 1967, the Local Government Act 1972 and the Interpretation Act 1978; the latter Act has references to "England and Wales" but defines them separately as "England" and "Wales". 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. A "London Postal District" was a sub-division (defined by points of the compass, i.e. N, W, E, NW, SE, SW, EC, WC) of the "London Postal Area". Modern Royal Mail arrangements do not conform to the associated boundaries although they still define postcode areas. The London Postal Area was larger than the County of London but smaller than the present Greater 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. They'll probably deliver to Dublin if you pay enough. - 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. So somebody gives you an address in Hayes sans postcode or locality... 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...? It covered large parts of Essex until 1965. 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? There are various practical reasons for doing so. 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. It would be if older legislation was deleted rather than amended by later legislation, but that is not how things work in the UK. 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)? |
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On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:34:12 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote: In message , at 14:15:56 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Recliner remarked: There *is* an underlying technical issue, in that out-of-area codes don't scale, because they involve running wires from one exchange to the other. Surely it's all done with software now? In any case, the exchanges are now connected by high bandwidth glass, not copper wire. The software switches calls within the exchange, but they have to get there first. I'm not sure if it does any more. ISTR the exchange "owning" the number now rejects the call and instructs the originating exchange where to send it (all done in milliseconds) BICBW. The older version on some exchanges required use of a directory number at the exchange actually serving the subscriber to which calls were silently diverted by the exchange which "owned" the number; IIRC that became unneccesary once everything was replaced by System X or newer. The originating exchange can only send to the receiving exchange specified by the code (there won't be an "exception routing table" for the out-of-area numbers). And that exchange then has to deliver the call to a distant POTs line. ITYF that like 0345, 0845 etc. it can deliver to a "numberless" circuit. That latter connection might well be done by a MUX at both ends and fibre in between, but that too doesn't scale very well, and isn't inherently cheaper than a leased line between those two points. |
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On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:53:50 -0700 (PDT), John B
wrote: On Jul 19, 2:03*pm, Mizter T wrote: 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. You understand wrong - yes, there is a London postal district. It consists of all postcodes that begin NW, N, E, SE and SW. All other postcodes, e.g. BR (Bromley), CR (Croydon), IG (Ilford) are emphatically *not* part of the London postal district. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_postal_district Aha, thanks. Beware of thanking someone for a Wonkypaedia reference. That article is duff as the area described is the London Postal Area, as can be determined by reference to the map in an old (or current?) London Postal Area telephone directory. A London Postal District was one of the geographically-defined subdivisions of the LPA, each had a "District Office" as would have been seen painted on the side of the mail vans serving that district. The Districts were further divided into alpha-numeric Subdistricts. 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. Eh? The fact that one of many delivery services organises its network in a particular way, even if it's (for the time being) the biggest, doesn't define government or geographical boundaries. And back when they were in Kent, they were in Kent. This isn't relevant now. No - the official Royal Mail requirement to include postal counties continued past the creation of Greater London. I'll try and find the date when the requirement was dropped. Yes, I was aware of that - I expressed it badly above. First they stopped being in Kent, then a delivery company stopped forcing people to write their location incorrectly. Now neither of those things happens, although as you've mentioned upthread people are allowed to write their location incorrectly if they choose. Also, like it or not, lots of people in the fringes of London in some areas - e.g. parts of the London Borough of Bromley are a good example - would give their address as Kent, and would furthermore identify with Kent (and also as soft of being part of Kent), at least in a number of ways - whilst also quite possibly identifying with London as well. Some on the edges would likely recoil as being labelled Londoners. As I said, like it or not. I'm sure you won't, but identity is a multi- layered, amorphous thing, not something decreed by John Band. To some extent... but location is clearly decreed by official boundaries. People who live in Bromley can identify as Kentish and not Londoners if they like - but their geographical location is London. 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 E4 postcode is part of the London postal district. "Greater London" has absolutely *no meaning* whatsoever in a postal address sense - cast-iron fact. As above, I didn't realise the entity 'London postal district' still existed - I thought that N or E was a postal district, as is usually the case for the initial letters of a postcode (e.g. GU or PO). Nonetheless, it is clearly true that addresses within the LPD are primarily within Greater London. 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. AFAICS it's not officially called the "TfL zonal area" (not least because logically that would include zones 7-9, which aren't recognised by the TOCs as such as they're more of a unilateral creation by TfL.) FWIW, the London Connections map refers to the "London Fare Zones". ...in its NR variant, although not in its TfL variant...! www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/lon_con.pdf And I've just looked up the PDF of the now out-of-date National Fares Manual 98, section A to be precise, which refers to the "London Fares Zones area" on page A4 (PDF page 6) - it's still online hehttp://www.atoc.org/retail/_download...8_Common_A.pdf Obviously the 'proper' zones 1-6 firmly have their origins in the boundaries of Greater London. Yup, plus simplifications and subsidies from neighbouring counties AIUI. 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)? Perhaps I've overstretched myself here... hmm! OK... The Port of London Authority has, er, authority over the whole Port of London, which consists of the tidal Thames from Teddington in the west all the way out to the Thames estuary in the east - see: http://www.pla.co.uk/display_fixedpa...d/178/site/pla Yes, like it. The London area of British Waterways stretches out to Bishop's Stortford, Hertford and Slough. Again, good. I was going to say that there's plenty of references to a "London" that isn't coterminous with Greater London in the broadcasting world - however I've just checked the licenses for Carlton and LWT, the two regional licensees for the Channel 3 service that cover London and beyond, and there's no reference to "London" in the licenses apart from where there's the list of transmitters. The BBC provide regional television and radio services for a wide area that stretches beyond Greater London that carry the name "BBC London", so one could argue that's quasi-official. Of course broadcasting isn't really a very good exemplar, as radio waves tend not to obey official boundaries! Hehe. Is BBC TV 'BBC London'? I thought it was overall southeast, but it's so long since I watched local BBC news I've no idea. NATS has a "London Area Control" and "London Terminal Control", both of which extend well beyond Greater London (OK, I'm stretching things just a bit!). And then the government officially defines the "London airports" as being Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted - only one of which is inside Greater London (and until 1994, some of it wasn't in Greater London) - though of course they're referring to airports that serve London rather than airports that are within London. The Church of England's Diocese of London only covers part of Greater London (and includes at least one bit outside of Greater London, Spelthorne), and doesn't stretch south of the river at all. Meanwhile the Dioceses of Rochester, Southwark, Guildford, St Albans and Chelmsford cover other areas in Greater London. Not official, you might say? Well, the CoE has a number of unique responsibilities that other churches don't have (AIUI basically the result of it being the "established church")- e.g. marrying anyone at their parish church, likewise providing funerals for those within the parish. Interesting - I'm surprised it doesn't match up slightly better with the county, I suppose that's the thing about Really Really Old boundaries.. Erm... what else... I think the NHS used to define London in different ways, but things have changed on that front (reflecting the general, gradual move towards administering things in line with the Greater London boundaries). Of course sporting organisations define London in a great many different ways - the very obvious example being cricket. One could I suppose put forward an argument that some of these sporting bodies are quasi-official, not least because the courts generally respect the broad concept that they have authority over their respective sports. Yes, it's a shame that cricket hasn't reorganised to match revised county boundaries, if only for the reaction this would provoke among Yorkshiremen g Lastly, the really obvious point that I didn't make earlier is that "London Underground" provides services to places outside of Greater London (and it isn't underground in these places either!). Good point. There aren't any underground bits of Underground outside London, are there? Maybe some of LHR would have counted pre-1984... |
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In message , at 23:10:09 on
Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Charles Ellson remarked: There *is* an underlying technical issue, in that out-of-area codes don't scale, because they involve running wires from one exchange to the other. Surely it's all done with software now? In any case, the exchanges are now connected by high bandwidth glass, not copper wire. The software switches calls within the exchange, but they have to get there first. I'm not sure if it does any more. ISTR the exchange "owning" the number now rejects the call and instructs the originating exchange where to send it (all done in milliseconds) BICBW. That's what they do for number portability. Perhaps it's also used for out-of-area numbers, but I'm not aware of it. The older version on some exchanges required use of a directory number at the exchange actually serving the subscriber to which calls were silently diverted by the exchange which "owned" the number; IIRC that became unneccesary once everything was replaced by System X or newer. Call diversion tends to be charged by use, whereas an out of area number would be a flat rate. The originating exchange can only send to the receiving exchange specified by the code (there won't be an "exception routing table" for the out-of-area numbers). And that exchange then has to deliver the call to a distant POTs line. ITYF that like 0345, 0845 etc. it can deliver to a "numberless" circuit. The circuit still has to deliver to the premises via POTs. Geographic numbers are done by ISDN, and/or the receiving party collecting the calls from the exchange. -- Roland Perry |
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Arthur Figgis wrote:
* Humberside was split into North Humberside and South Humberside. Not that many locals would use the word in their addresses, especially after it was put out of its misery in 1996. I believe "Avon" has faded even faster, though Bristol addresses didn't need it anyway as it's a large post town. |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
MIG wrote:
You seem to have implied that something was required after LONDON until 1996, but it definitely wasn't. Ah, I forgot the big post towns. But I have often used "London" as the county when sending stuff to Richmond-upon-Thames and Sutton (well actually Cheam but that's another can of worms...) without a problem. Businesses in Ilford could easily start giving their address as "Ilford, London" without waiting in vain for the Royal Mail to turn IG1 into E20. |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
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HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:06:03 +0100, Roland Perry
wrote: In message , at 19:40:39 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, DW downunder remarked: You guys have got what we had dumped on us - 8 digit local numbers. We had the same change-over issues. In a big area like London, you need 8-digit numbers because there are so many subscribers. (With things like DDI numbers in office blocks eating up huge chunks of the numbering space). Other areas still have at most 7-digit numbers (plus the code). Northern Ireland, Southampton, Portsmouth and Caerdydd numbers are also 8 digit. IIRC the latter was intended as a precursor to all of Wales becoming 029 xxxx xxxx (029=0CY). Northern Ireland now seems to be effectively one giant Belfast (0BT xxxx xxxx) numbering scheme. These renumberings do not OTOH affect the charging areas. |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
John B wrote in news:7e4d44a7-3974-43c8-883a-
: doesn't define government or geographical boundaries. The two are not identical. |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
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? Or is Derby not in Derbyshire? The Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire's responsibility includes Derby. |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:14:07 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote: Recliner wrote: I'm still forced to use Middlesex as part of my address by Web forms that have a mandatory 'County' field. Put "London" or "Greater London" and it will get through just as fast. Not always if the destination is e.g. Hayes. |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
Mizter T wrote in
: On Jul 19, 11:58*am, Arthur Figgis wrote: 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 :-) I notice it, but it's not really something that bothers me. Some people seem like they're going to implode with fury when they see or hear the code being incorrectly used - so perhaps the whole serves a useful purpose in identifying those who can't keep things in proportion! It becomes a problem when I (correctly) give out my work number in two parts, pausing after the 7xxx part, and the muppet customer "repeats" back "07xxx"... |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
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HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:14:19 -0700 (PDT), MIG
wrote: On 19 July, 04:57, Charles Ellson wrote: On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:15:31 -0700 (PDT), MIG wrote: On 18 July, 18:55, David Hansen wrote: On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:05:11 +0100 someone who may be "Basil Jet" wrote this:- Middlesex exists, it just isn't recognised by the national government. There is still a cricket club with that name, a university and the post office know where it is. This where someone usually pops up saying that the current boundaries are just "administrative boundaries", implying that past administrative boundaries somehow delimit real places in a different way. They are all administrative boundaries. *I tend to think that current boundaries and authorities are the only ones worth worrying about, because they are current. Don't get a job dealing with land or associated legal documentation where many of the related entities have not been "current" for many years.- Any relevant powers will have been delegated elsewhere though, surely. No, the relevant "powers" are those of ownership of land. The land is defined in the terms current at the time of registration so someone still has to worry about the information. Many legal documents will have been signed by people who are dead, but it's no good asking dead people for authority to do anything. The authority lives on. As for place names, down my way a lot of stuff is named after St John. Does this prove that he still exists? philosophy mode on Can you prove he does not ? philosophy mode off |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
Martin Edwards wrote in news:kgz8m.17902$m%4.11960
@newsfe25.ams2: 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. You seem to be under the misapprehension that a place can be located in only one county. |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 03:01:54 -0700 (PDT), Mizter T
wrote: On Jul 19, 7:52*am, Martin Edwards wrote: David Hansen wrote: On Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:05:11 +0100 someone who may be "Basil Jet" wrote this:- Middlesex exists, it just isn't recognised by the national government. There is still a cricket club with that name, a university and the post office know where it is. The post office know where it is because they have to. *You are not supposed to put /any/ counties, never mind defunct ones, but people simply do not pay attention. *Total nonsense* - postal counties are not required any more, but nowhere do the Royal Mail state that they should not appear as part of an address. The Royal Mail is happy for information that is "postally not required" (their phrase) to appear in an address, just so long as the required information is given clearly - that is house number or name and street, and also post town and postcode. (Of course even if one omits the post town then it'll get through, especially if one is posting from within that post town - e.g. London.) Not prohibiting certain information tends to allow an element of redundancy which is of no help to most mail handling but a great help in a small number of cases. Reducing redundancy to zero would leave most addresses devoid of a street name but that would greatly increase the amount of time dealing with the proportion of mail which is misaddressed. Distinct from the use of "obsolete" address information, the real pests are businesses which make up imaginary postal districts (e.g. "Royal Deesside") which can hinder the proper (human or machine) interpretation of an address. |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
"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? |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Recliner wrote:
"Mizter T" wrote in message To an extent, Middlesex exists as a place in the sense that people think it exists - in that sense it's much like any other place name. There's all those many things named after Middlesex of course - there's Middlesex County Cricket Club for example, and there's also North Middlesex and West Middlesex hospitals (and there was (Central) Middlesex Hospital, now merged with UCH). Middlesex also continued to exist as a postal county up until the Royal Mail abandoned the notion of postal counties, so properly addressed letters included Middlesex on the last line (this issue is somewhat complicated as a good chunk of metropolitan Middlesex was already in the London postal district). I'm still forced to use Middlesex as part of my address by Web forms that have a mandatory 'County' field. I usually put 'Londonshire'. Stands to reason. tom -- Next issue - Nigel and the slavegirls ... or, why capitalism can never work! |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Recliner wrote:
"John B" wrote in message 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. But nevertheless very common. I have never seen such a thing in all my born days, and i buy things online on average once every 6.2 minutes. Could you direct me to some examples of such forms? tom -- Next issue - Nigel and the slavegirls ... or, why capitalism can never work! |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 04:00:47 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, John B remarked: 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, There *is* an underlying technical issue, in that out-of-area codes don't scale, because they involve running wires from one exchange to the other. My understanding is that there are already wires running from one exchange to the other. That's how the phone calls get around, d'you see. Out-of-area numbers don't involve special wires. It's done with software, in the routing layer. But it's not done terribly well, so there is still a cost - cheaper than special wires, but more than zero. Clive Feather gave a good explanation of this some time ago on this group. From what i remember, everyone agrees that there's a sensible way to do number porting that wouldn't require exchange Q to be involved in a call from A to B just because B's number was once at Q, but that's not how things work at the moment, and getting it changed is going to be a painful process. tom -- Next issue - Nigel and the slavegirls ... or, why capitalism can never work! |
HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
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HS1 Domestic trains are a bit busy
On Sun, 19 Jul 2009, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 19:10:15 on Sun, 19 Jul 2009, DW downunder 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 :( I've never enountered a US site demanding "County". City, State (from drop-down list) and ZIP is the usual form. Some US sites have been internationalised, and make an attempt at collecting addresses in other formats when you tell it what country you are from. I did that once - when you pick a country from a drop-down list, it reloads the page in a version with the right address form for your country (i think we put the country-specific form in an internal frame, and just reloaded that, rather than the whole page). It was a bit of a demo, so we only covered the UK, US, France and Japan. It wasn't that hard in the end, but we spent half a day reading up on Japanese address formats and becoming increasingly mindboggled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_addressing_system The Universal Postal Union has a standard called S42 which is a gigantic compendium of address formats for all countries, including which bits are okay to leave out etc, and which goes into mind-numbing detail. Someone should really sit down with it and produce some sort of open source address format library, which web developers (or ideally, web development framework vendors like Microsoft, Sun, the PHP Group, etc) could plug into their sites to get properly-done internationalised address formats right away. tom -- Next issue - Nigel and the slavegirls ... or, why capitalism can never work! |
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