--- Nick said...


we have a right to label our area as Kent if we wish.
(*snip*)
don't deny my neighbours'
and my right to choose our county affiliation.

Is this really a right? Is it mentioned anywhere in the Charter of
Human Rights or enshrined in an act of Parliament or anything like that?

I only ask because when people are trapped in a losing argument
(especially in Usenet) they normally start bluffing about non-existent
rights. It's the stage before mentioning Nazis. So I do tend to get a
bit cynical when people start mentioning strange rights that no-one's
ever heard of before...

Niklas Karlsson wrote:
In article , Mrs Redboots wrote:
Peter Beale wrote to uk.transport.london on Wed, 12 Jan 2005:
They're not tubes - they are cut-and-cover ("tube" traditionally
describes the trains using the deep-level bored tube lines, not
those like the Met and District built by scooping out a trough and
subsequently covering it up).

Hmmm - TfL now describes all of them as "The Tube"..... (something
about when you're in a hole, stop digging?)

Surely you mean "in a tunnel"? :-)


Isn't a hole simply a tunnel in a different direction, or vice versa?

"Solar Penguin" wrote in message
...

--- Nick said...


we have a right to label our area as Kent if we wish.
(*snip*)
don't deny my neighbours'
and my right to choose our county affiliation.

Is this really a right? Is it mentioned anywhere in the Charter of
Human Rights or enshrined in an act of Parliament or anything like that?

I only ask because when people are trapped in a losing argument
(especially in Usenet) they normally start bluffing about non-existent
rights. It's the stage before mentioning Nazis. So I do tend to get a
bit cynical when people start mentioning strange rights that no-one's
ever heard of before...

It doesn't look like a losing argument to me. So, if I decide to ban you
from being called Solar Penguin and dictate that you must now be called
Lunar Rat, is that reasonable? You would have "every right" to choose your
name and label, not because there is an specific act of parliament that says
so, but because it would be commonly held as reasonable IMO.

In message , Nick
writes

How can I explain this: when I visit somewhere like Maidstone it feels
very similar; when I visit somewhere like Lewisham, New Cross, or
Deptford, they seem so entirely different.

And yet Deptford, Lewisham and most of New Cross were all in Kent for
centuries, of course.

--
Paul Terry

Nick:
Postal counties still exist and are maintained, they just aren't one
of the
mandatory address fields. However, as far as I am aware, the RM
*still*
recommend the use of the postal county for places such as "Rainham,
Essex"
and "Rainham, Kent" to avoid any potential confusion.

[sorry if the formatting's screwed - googlegroups confuses me]

Just as an aside, National Rail refer to them as Rainham, London and
Rainham, Kent...

Jonn

Nick:
Postal counties still exist and are maintained, they just aren't one
of the
mandatory address fields. However, as far as I am aware, the RM
*still*
recommend the use of the postal county for places such as "Rainham,
Essex"
and "Rainham, Kent" to avoid any potential confusion.

[sorry if the formatting's screwed - googlegroups confuses me]

Just as an aside, National Rail refer to them as Rainham, London and
Rainham, Kent...

Jonn

Paul Terry wrote to uk.transport.london on Thu, 13 Jan 2005:

In message , Nick
ennard.com writes

How can I explain this: when I visit somewhere like Maidstone it feels
very similar; when I visit somewhere like Lewisham, New Cross, or
Deptford, they seem so entirely different.

And yet Deptford, Lewisham and most of New Cross were all in Kent for
centuries, of course.

Yes, there was, as I recall, a London Road, Lewisham, home of the
Bastable family in E Nesbit's novel, "The Treasure Seekers".
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 2 January 2005

Peter Goodland wrote:
"Brimstone" wrote...
Tony Wilson wrote:
Of all the horrors of the early years of tendering in London,
something which really bugged me (out of all proportion if I'm
honest!) was the taking away of our red buses. This was particularly
true where I lived at the time as even the route London Buses
retained were transformed into the horrendous Bexlybus operation. It
really felt like they were taking some of our London heritage away,
which is all the more sensitive when the Royal Mail tells everybody
you live in Kent.


Are you suggesting the Royal Mail is wrong? As far as I'm aware Bexley has
always been in Kent, it's only the grasping of London suburbia that has
caused Bexley to become attached to the metropolis.


1. If you live in Bexley, how much of your council tax goes to Kent County
Council?

None now, but AIUI some did before the GLA was created, as KCC were
responsible for some of the roads.

2. The Royal Mail dropped the requirement for county names in addresses many
years ago.
Type your postcode into their address finder.

A significant proportion of mail is still hand sorted, and that is still
done by county.

Stephen Osborn wrote:

De facto a continuous built up area is a single _something_, the only
question is what. The phrase Metropolitan Area is used because these
somethings are relatively new and contain a number of things already called
cities.

The word you're looking for is conurbation. Or if it contains a number
of things already called cities, it's a megalopolis.

Nick wrote:
"Ian Jelf" wrote...
writes
I know "Londoners" find this hard to believe, but many of us don't wanty
to be part of your high-density overpopulated sprawling urban gloom.

But people there are probably happy with their co-ordinated public
transport and - when the time comes - Freedom Passes?

Whenever I have this debate about Bexley part of Greater London or not, the
biggest noise always seems to be made about the Freedom pass!

Probably because the holders have got the most to lose, and will
fiercely resist any attempt to take it away.

Arguably, I think the freedom pass is overkill anyway; I would support free
use of local buses to moderately distant locations, trains to central
London, and maybe tube travel in Z1 off-peak. In Bexley, I would guess that
95% of Freedom pass owners use the train and tube extremely rarely, and
probably less than 50% use the buses regularly.

Do you know any Freedom pass owners? Your guess seems wildly low!

I don't believe pensioners
are at all bothered that they can travel to Uxbridge for free.

Maybe not Uxbridge, but certainly Kingston and Heathrow, despite the
truncation of the 726 at Bromley.

How many
Freedom pass users regularly travel to Dartford and Bluewater and contribute
to "out-of-region" retail spend I wonder :-)

Unlike normal bus passes, Freedom passes are not valid as far as
Bluewater. However, they are valid to Dartford and Swanley on the train
as well as on the bus. Hundreds use Freedom passes to get to Dartford
and Swanley markets, but that's hardly "out of region".

Co-ordinated local public transport? In Bexley, that just means running
buses with the NR network, and you don't need a massive Greater London body
to draw up a few bus timetables to match those of the NR network.

Services in Bexley are so erratic that timetabled connections would be
meaningless. Fortunately most routes are reasonably frequent (with the
exception of the B14 which only runs every 30 minutes on a good day) and
buses serve every rail station in Bexley LB.