On Jul 20, 1:09*am, wrote:
In article ,

(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:
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.

Does anyone use "CUBA"?

Castro?

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

In article
,
(John B) wrote:

On Jul 20, 1:09*am, wrote:
In article ,

(Tim Roll-Pickering) wrote:
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.

Does anyone use "CUBA"?

Castro?

Tut, tut. "County that Used to Be Avon".

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article
,
(John B) wrote:

On Jul 19, 11:34*pm, 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.

Or is Derby not in Derbyshire?

Wrong. Derby is still in the ceremonial council of Derbyshire, and the
ceremonial country of Greater Manchester still exists and contains all
the GM boroughs despite the county council's abolition - but the
ceremonial county of Middlesex was abolished at the same time as
Middlesex County Council.

A less confusing term than "ceremonial county" (let alone "ceremonial
country" - the mind boggles) is "lieutenancy" which neatly encompasses the
various changes caused by the effective return of County Boroughs, now
termed Unitary Authorities.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Alistair Gunn wrote in :

In uk.railway Mizter T twisted the electrons to say:
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.)

It's amazing what parts of the address can be omitted, and still have the
item reach the destination! My personal favourite was the letter which
had (something like) the following on it :-

Mr & Mrs Smith
The house with the white(?) door opposite the church
$VILLAGE
Incorrect, albeit not massively, postcode ...

A few years ago, someone wrote just my name on an envelope, meaning to add
the address later. She forgot to do so and posted it in a town some 10
miles from where I live in suburban Surrey.

It arrived the next day.

Peter

--
Peter Campbell Smith ~ London ~ pjcs00 (a) gmail.com

On Jul 20, 12:19*pm, wrote:
In article
,





(John B) wrote:
On Jul 19, 11:34*pm, 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.

Or is Derby not in Derbyshire?

Wrong. Derby is still in the ceremonial council of Derbyshire, and the
ceremonial country of Greater Manchester still exists and contains all
the GM boroughs despite the county council's abolition - but the
ceremonial county of Middlesex was abolished at the same time as
Middlesex County Council.

A less confusing term than "ceremonial county" (let alone "ceremonial
country" - the mind boggles) is "lieutenancy" which neatly encompasses the
various changes caused by the effective return of County Boroughs, now
termed Unitary Authorities.

Dear God, that was a bad bit of typo-ry on my part.

What I intended to say was:

Wrong. Derby is still in the ceremonial county of Derbyshire, and the
ceremonial county of Greater Manchester still exists and contains all
the GM boroughs despite Greater Manchester County Council's abolition,
but the ceremonial county of Middlesex was abolished at the same time
as the abolition of Middlesex County Council.

Although I suppose Wales from 1400ish to 1973 could probably have been
viewed as a 'ceremonial country'.

I'm not sure adding yet another term, referring to an official that
c.nobody has heard of, is helpful - 'ceremonial county' at least makes
clear that This Exists, This Is Officially Recognised, but This Is Not
How Government Is Organised.

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

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.
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'.

Peter

PS. The confusion of Kingston-dwellers is no doubt compounded by the very
visible headquarters of Surrey County Council, listed on their website as:

County Hall
Penrhyn Road
Kingston upon Thames
Surrey KT1 2DN

--
Peter Campbell Smith ~ London ~ pjcs00 (a) gmail.com

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.

John B wrote:

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...)

The main reason is almost certainly down to the survival of the counties in
the mailing addresses. A postal county was never needed for CROYDON, so
people have had much less of a reason to include "Surrey" in their
addresses, whereas until 1996 "Surrey" was needed for KINGSTON.

(That said, BROMLEY and TWICKENHAM also didn't require counties - what's the
view there? And aren't there some DARTFORD addresses within the Greater
London boundaries?)

Before 1965 Croydon was a county borough (then lacking Coulsdon and Purley
which formed an Urban District) so Surrey County Council had less of an
impact there. My experience of the Sutton attitude is different but it's
possible opinion within the borough is divided.

Yes indeed. Surrey CC HQ was supposed to move to the outskirts of
Woking in the mid-2000s, but the project got cancelled after the
council threw a hissy fit (allegedly 'because of a poor settlement the
[Tory] council received from the government' - which makes perfect
sense, because obviously selling up a town centre site in Kingston
wouldn't pay for a brownfield site outside London. I'm guessing the
council bigwigs just didn't fancy the extra commute down to the place
they're actually supposed to be running...)

I recall Kingston University was due to get the county hall - possibly it
was the plan for the university to get it below the going rate with the
government making up the difference?

Clive Feather gave a good explanation of this some time ago on this group.

RFC 3482 gives a thorough, somewhat numbing, overview of number portability:

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3482.txt

The right way to do it is to look up each number when the call is
placed to find out where to deliver it. The wrong way is to implement
it as a variety of call forwarding. As of 2003 when the RFC was
written, the UK did it mostly the wrong way, with some BT switches
doing it closer to the right way. A quick look at the OFCOM site
suggests nothing much has changed since then.

UK portability will always be inferior to North American portability,
since it doesn't permit porting between landline and mobile, but there
isn't much to be done about that.

R's,
John

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote

The main reason is almost certainly down to the survival of the counties
in the mailing addresses. A postal county was never needed for CROYDON, so
people have had much less of a reason to include "Surrey" in their
addresses, whereas until 1996 "Surrey" was needed for KINGSTON.

(That said, BROMLEY and TWICKENHAM also didn't require counties - what's
the view there? And aren't there some DARTFORD addresses within the
Greater London boundaries?)

AIUI before postcodes a postal county was needed in all addresses, apart
from those of London and some other major cities, though it was the county
of the post town, not that of the actual address. So Tatsfield in Surrey had
a Tatsfield, WESTERHAM, Kent postal address. At some stage after postcodes
were introduced it became permissible to omit the county where the post town
was the 'driver' of the postcode - so BROMLEY, BR1 xxx, but CHISLEHURST,
Kent, BR7 5xx. Later still it became permissible to omit all counties from
addresses.

And aren't there some DARTFORD addresses within the Greater London
boundaries?

Yes - Crayford in the London Borough of Bexley has DARTFORD addresses. Most
if not all of the London Borough of Bexley is within the DA postcode area,
but apart from Crayford has SIDCUP, WELLING, BEXLEY, BEXLEYHEATH, or ERITH
postal addresses.

Peter