Mr Thant wrote:

It would be less good for the people of the part of east London that many
Londoners erroneously refer to as Essex, of course.

There's nothing erroneous about the River Lea.

So why do I, living in Forest Gate to the east of the Lea, never here or
feel this Essex spirit here?

On Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 20:43:55
on Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Tom Anderson remarked:
None of the stations between Shenfield and Southend have fast trains to
London, for example.

Really? The next train to leave Prittlewell, the 2048, calls all stops to
Shenfield,

And you call that "fast"?? Sheesh.

Fast from Shenfield. Sorry, we're using different definitions of the term
here, and thus arguing at cross purposes.

I don't know if you remember, but we were talking about Crossrail, and
connecting with it, particularly if it only ran to Stratford, as Mr Thant
- flippantly, i think - suggested. What's relevant there is whether any
given station in Essex has a service which will get you to Stratford, to
catch a Stratford-Crossrail train, more quickly than you would if you went
to Shenfield and changed onto a Shenfield-Crossrail train there. This
boils down to whether a station has a service which runs non- or few-stop
Shenfield - Stratford.

Shenfield does, thanks to expresses which call there. All stations beyond
Shenfield do, as that's how the London leg of their routes work. Brentwood
is the only station which doesn't.

Of course, most of those trains aren't fast over all of their route.
Almost none of them are, in fact - just the Norwich intercities, i think,
and those don't even stop at Stratford.

tom

--
blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, ignoramus, liar, rat,
swine, stoolpigeon, and traitor

MIG wrote:

Maybe it's one of those self-definition things that they have on equal
opportunities questionnaires. People in Ilford feel themselves to be
Essex people and face the same prejudices and barriers in life as
Essex people. Or something like that.

A sweeping statement - have you told that to the people lobbying for the
postcode to be changed to E20 so that businesses there don't appear to be
outside London?

"Roland Perry" wrote :
Town Hall, 128-142 High Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 1DD
Town Hall, 128-142 High Road, Ilford, Outer Mongolia, IG1 1DD
Neither of them are correct. Both of them would get delivered correctly.
One has additions which are helpful (to the public if not the Post
Office's automatic sorting machine), the other is comedy.

Incorrect, actually.

Since the day that Tony Benn introduced postcodes, adding the 'county' has
been a waste of ink. It's utterly redundant to the sorting process and the
postman on his round.

And I fail to see how it helps anybody else, especially in and around
London, when several Essex, Kent and Surrey addresses (not to mention 100%
of Middlesex), are actually part of Greater London.

County has a historical value for those who value local history, such as Men
of Kent and Kentish Men plus Yorkshire Folk, but to most normal human
beings, the county is an irrelevance.

Sorry.
--

Andrew

Interviewer: Tonight I'm interviewing that famous nurse, Florence
Nightingale
Tommy Cooper (dressed as a nurse): Sir Florence Nightingale
Interviewer: *Sir* Florence Nightingale?
Tommy Cooper: I'm a Night Nurse

Campaign For The Real Tommy Cooper

On Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 20:46:04
on Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Tom Anderson remarked:
Town Hall, 128-142 High Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 1DD
It would be equally correct to write:
Town Hall, 128-142 High Road, Ilford, Outer Mongolia, IG1 1DD

No, because it makes no sense.

Neither of them are correct. Both of them would get delivered correctly.

One has additions which are helpful (to the public if not the Post Office's
automatic sorting machine), the other is comedy.

I don't see how the former is helpful. If you want to write them a letter,
then the postcode is sufficient, and the addition of Essex is completely
superfluous. If you actually want to go there, the addition of Essex is
actually unhelpful, because if you have modern maps and are not aware that
there's a bit of London which thinks it's in Essex, you'll be looking on
the wrong page. Unless you just look up Ilford directly, in which case the
county designation again is completely superfluous.

tom

--
blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, ignoramus, liar, rat,
swine, stoolpigeon, and traitor

On Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Roland Perry wrote:

In message
, at
12:41:36 on Mon, 8 Dec 2008, MIG remarked:

Brentwood is the first station in Essex on that line, as I recall.

Correct. And as the only station in Essex which wouldn't have fast
trains to Stratford [1], they would be particularly hard done by.

That's the current situation I think.

*[1] This is probably not true.

Wildly untrue. None of the stations between Shenfield and Southend have
fast trains to London, for example.

It's true if "fast" means "non-stop from Shenfield".

That isn't a useful definition of "fast" in this context.

Actually, in this context, it's the *only* useful definition.

tom

--
blackguard, coward, git, guttersnipe, hooligan, ignoramus, liar, rat,
swine, stoolpigeon, and traitor

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
20:43:55 on Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Tom Anderson
remarked:
None of the stations between Shenfield and Southend have fast
trains to London, for example.

Really? The next train to leave Prittlewell, the 2048, calls all
stops to Shenfield,

And you call that "fast"?? Sheesh.

You would if you lived in Billericay.

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at
16:03:04 on Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Tom Anderson
remarked:
Town Hall, 128-142 High Road, Ilford, Essex, IG1 1DD

It would be equally correct to write:

Town Hall, 128-142 High Road, Ilford, Outer Mongolia, IG1 1DD

No, because it makes no sense.

Neither of them are correct. Both of them would get delivered
correctly.

Although the latter would take a few weeks longer.

Andrew Heenan wrote:

Since the day that Tony Benn introduced postcodes, adding the 'county' has
been a waste of ink. It's utterly redundant to the sorting process and the
postman on his round.

It was actually in 1996 the requirement was dropped, long after Tony Benn.
Indeed some of the 1972 Local Government Act changes were incorporated into
the postal addresses - "Avon" was a particularly unpopular one.

And I fail to see how it helps anybody else, especially in and around
London, when several Essex, Kent and Surrey addresses (not to mention
100% of Middlesex), are actually part of Greater London.

Not all of Middlesex - Spelthorne was put into Surrey and the postal
counties never updated to that. But I agree it only adds to confusion.

Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Andrew Heenan wrote:

And I fail to see how it helps anybody else, especially in and around
London, when several Essex, Kent and Surrey addresses (not to mention
100% of Middlesex), are actually part of Greater London.

Not all of Middlesex - Spelthorne was put into Surrey and the postal
counties never updated to that. But I agree it only adds to confusion.

And the Potters Bar part of Middlesex was given to Hertfordshire (which
meant that the boundary between Barnet and Potters Bar went from having
Hertfordshire on the south side only to having Hertfordshire on the north
side only).