South West Railway Forum

[jules]

The thing that particularly irritates me as a resident of Bristol is when filling in my address online I am required to state the county.

Irritates me so much I refuse to buy anything from any company whose database is 16 years out of date - and I tell them so.

If forced to provide a county in the address, I always put "Bristol" as the county as well, which it is. If it is a drop down list which does not include Bristol as a selection, I simply go elsewhere. I absolutely refuse to use Avon (as it hasn't existed since 1996) and I certainly refuse to use Gloucesteshire or Somerset, which hasn't been true since 1373!

From a system architect's perspective, Bristol is not at all unusual. It is not that it doesn't have a county - it IS a county in its own right, so any system I build or advise on has Bristol in the underlying data and it appears as a county choice. The lesson here is to ensure that the underlying data is accurate and not to try and "massage" it to fit the (misconceived) exceptions into the programmer's otherwise convenient view of the world.

In the case of Bristol, this results in addresses being printed as "Bristol, Bristol" - which is dead easy to filter out one of the Bristols (or any other such needless repeated line) prior to producing output. But the real thing is: addresses with post codes absolutely no longer require a county name - they just require the post town and actually at minimum, just the post code and house number/name. From 2016, counties will not even appear in the Royal Mail's address database. See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... esses.html

Unpopular I know, but that's progress for you! (Stands back as Mr Summerhill comes to the boil! )

[jules]

The owner of the site has read all the feedback here and as a result is making several changes, including to the number and complexity of the security questions and a shorter password.

That's always good to respond to your potential user's feedback I'll take another look and wish the owner luck.

Spam is always a pain, but the simplest of login mechanisms and IP blocking will defeat most, unless a site has something that is really worth getting (such as money / personal data).

One has to be careful that security measures put in place don't become so onerous as to put off the intended audience!

[Robin Summerhill]

Unpopular I know, but that's progress for you! (Stands back as Mr Summerhill comes to the boil! )

Have I been giving you the wrong impression?

Just because the Royal Mail intend in future to make the county line "obsolete" in their addresses, it doesn't make the counties themselves obsolete. Local government is based on them, for one thing, which you could argue is a little more important than how a letter to somebody is addressed.

It's not just the Bristol/ Avon thing of course - in 1974, local government reorganisation got up a lot of people's noses all around the country, because the intention was to fully remove certain counties from the map, in the same way that the independent countries of Wessex and Murcia and the rest were removed from the map over 1000 years ago.

I remember an article about people who lived in Rutland, for example, being told not to address letters to "Rutland" because it no longer existed. Back came the retort - "of course it does - we bloody live here"

But back to local issues - in common with everybody else I didn't like the Avon title anyway, but in my case more from the point of view of it taking over bits of Gloucestershire and Somerset. When I lived in Chipping Sodbury 1975 to 1980, as far as I was concerned I lived in South Gloucestershire, not Avon.

Mind you, I have to say I wasn't 100% happy with those 14th century upstarts upsetting the apple cart in the first place - north of the Avon should be Gloucestershire, south of it should be Somerset. But then you'd get an area of disputed land between Bristol Bridge and the New Cut .....

[the green mile]

Shall I light the blue touch paper by asking how 'Avon' should be pronounced? Is the 'o' pronounced as an 'e' as in Haven or as the 'o' in on?

[nickt]

It wasnt that long ago when you filled out an online form that AVON still came up as your county. I cant recall seing it very recently but suspect it is still lurking in online databases somewhere.

[nickt]

I pronounce it AVUN.

[Robin Summerhill]

I pronounce it AVUN.

Likewise. Like the river, and all the other River "Avuns" around the country. But when you start talking about pronunciations, you open another can of worms.

How often have you heard a Bristolian say: "Wales. Welsh Wales" because they can't apparently pronounce an A in the same way as you pronounce it when saying the alphabet.

Another example is Keynsham (spelt K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M for some of us older members ) Knowing how to pronounce this sometimes gives people a problem with Yatton Keynell in Wiltshire (pronounced "Kennel" as in a dog house). Then there is Calne, pronounced locally with a hard A as in "cat." Such things are sent to try us

But its not just Bristolians. A woman I used to work with was once talking about meeting somebody in M5 Gordano services - pronouncing the A as in bark.

I pointed out that the line in the Adge Cutler song "I must go back again-o, to Easton in Gordano," rhymed.

Some on' 'em cassn't understand proper speakin'. Thees know what I means...

[the green mile]

Aha, someone else who remembers Horace Batchelor!

[Robin Summerhill]

Aha, someone else who remembers Horace Batchelor!

Shall we start a poll to find out how many people around here know what the devil we're talking about?

[jules]

That's Keynsham - "K E Y N S H A M" Fab! (Geddit?)

[jules]

I got to stop hanging around in here - I'm supposed to be working!

Going to be a late night now ...

[jules]

But back to local issues - in common with everybody else I didn't like the Avon title anyway, but in my case more from the point of view of it taking over bits of Gloucestershire and Somerset.

One could argue that Bristol "taking over bits of Gloucestershire and Somerset" is long, long overdue. As a Bristolian speaking that is ... of course, you should really have said "some more bits" Robin, as we've had a habit of doing it in the past - and then marching a few City Council dignitaries around the expanded boundaries to gloat at the remaining yokels

[Robin Summerhill]

But back to local issues - in common with everybody else I didn't like the Avon title anyway, but in my case more from the point of view of it taking over bits of Gloucestershire and Somerset.

One could argue that Bristol "taking over bits of Gloucestershire and Somerset" is long, long overdue. As a Bristolian speaking that is ... of course, you should really have said "some more bits" Robin, as we've had a habit of doing it in the past - and then marching a few City Council dignitaries around the expanded boundaries to gloat at the remaining yokels

This thread was supposed to be about the South West Railway Forum but, as we've well and truly hijacked that, then as you brought the matter up, we may as well just finish with it

There is nothing new about urban areas "taking over" adjacent rural areas. Council minute books the country over are full of towns and cities expanding during the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, widening their boundaries to take in the enlarged urban areas just beyond their borders. Those that I know about personally (because I've trawled the Council minute books in the areas in question) include Chippenham and Calne both expanding (Chippenham just after WW2, Calne in 1934) and also the Malmesbury Borough Council Area, which took over bits of Malmesbury RDC in phases between 1900 and 1947.

The difference, and the inherent problem, with the creation of Avon was that it attempted to make this change on too large a scale and too quickly. Whilst, perhaps, few people would have argued with the likes of Staple Hill, Mangotsfield, Hanham and Warmley being ceded to Bristol Corporation, when you got out to the likes of Thornbury, Chipping Sodbury, Norton Radstock, Weston Super Mare and even Bath being effectively included in a "Greater Bristol by another name" then the problems started. Many people out there would simply not subscribe to the concept of "rule from Bristol." In a way, I'm almost surprised that Avon lasted for 22 years.

All that said, I was raised in Staple Hill. In Gloucestershire. My school books said "Gloucestershire County Council" on their covers. Just to (for a change for this thread ) make a railway-related point, its a bit like the argument over liveries for preserved locomotives - everybody wants then in the livery they first saw them in. I woulld have preferred to keep Staple Hill in Gloucestershire, because that's where it was when I was a kid.

OK - Bristol was less than a mile away - that big round sign at the end of Thicket Avenue told you where it started. But we were in Gloucestershire.

They was "them" and we was "us"

[railwest]

When that ghastly abberation 'Avon' was first introduced, the excuse from Royal Mail for late delivery of letters to us was that the sender had used 'Somerset' rather than 'Avon'. When, after Avon was abolished, we asked RM why their postcode directories still used it, they said that it had been kept "for historical reasons". Huh!!!

I am amazed at the number of new businesses, let alone existing ones, who continue to give their address as 'Avon' - have they not caught up with the 21st Century yet? I make a point of telling them that, if they can't even work out where they are based, then I certainly wouldn't entrust them with my custom (bet they just l-o-v-e awkward b****s like me <g>). There was even a letter in the paper this week from a resident of W-S-M in 'Avon' <grrr>.

And it's not just Bristol, Bristol - I had the same problem years ago in Exeter.

[Rich_Eason]

That's Keynsham - "K E Y N S H A M" Fab! (Geddit?)

"Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen-sham"

"Keeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyn-shum"

"Ken-shum"

"Kenchum"