h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: UK Counties and Regions, England, Surrey - A6028193
Author: Deke - U27380

My contribution to the 'Counties' project.
This may be getting a tad too long and there may be a few too many bodies littered throughout. Any suggestions for additions/deletions welcome.
DK

The Entry should be called Surrey, England, UK.

Duly amended
Thanks
DK

Thanks. But I didn't intend that you should put a full stop at the end of the title. Sorry.

This is very good. There's plenty of interesting and useful information in it. I think the Good and Famous section would be improved by making it into an unordered list (a bullet-pointed list):


Your text for first person
Your text for second person
Your text for third person


Other than that, the only things I can suggest are spelling and formatting problems which are not important at this stage. Remind me later in the week about them.

Dun again
DK

standard moan ...

Postcodes denote the postal town - ie town that the post office directs mail to.

It doesn't ahve anything to do with county boundaries. ie glossop which is in derbyshire has an SK postcode for Stockport which was cheshire and is now gtr manchester

so KT is not a Surrey post code - it is a Kingston postcode that just happens to apply to some parts of surrey and some parts of Londres.


===

plus, I've also heard Essex being reffered to as the Patio of England

John-m
Thanks for the info. Correction made to the postcode item.
DK

Good, comprehensive entry, well done


Some spelling corrections:

Waverly => Waverley throughout

well healed merchants => well-heeled merchants

final throws => final throes

Principle Towns => Principal Towns

Runnymeade => Runnymede



Interesting facts:

As well as the county hall, Surrey Cricket Club HQ is also outside the county, at the Kennington Oval.

Woking also is the site of the country's first crematorium. I found this bit on the web: "On 26th March 1885 the first official cremation at Woking took place. Mrs. Pickersgill, a well-known figure in literary and scientific circles, was the first of three cremations that year. Mr. Charles William Carpenter was cremated on 19th October and in December the third cremation. In 1886 there were ten cremations and during the year 1888, there were a total of 28."

Woking's fixation with HG Wells also extends to a striking sculpture of a Martian War Machine, which graces the town centre.

Surrey has been the filming location for many movies. I was once told that Frensham Pond was the nearest sandy beach to the London film studios. Check out http://www.wheredidtheyfilmthat.co.uk/locsearch.php?county_id=38 for a few examples. I heard that parts of Lawrence of Arabia were filmed in the shifting Frensham sands, but this list doesn't appear to bear this out!

Silly comments:

I particularly enjoyed the Ha-ha footnote, although I thought jokes were banned here.

There's nothing in the writing guidelines to say that jokes are banned. They just say that we shouldn't try too hard to be funny.

Croydon is still in Surrey, at least it was called Surrey in my address when I lived there (until 2003). I know it was governed as a London Borough, but I thought it *was* still in the county of Surrey. This may be a similar situation to my current home, which is part of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, yet is still part of Berkshire.

Will go look at the council website to see if that makes things clearer.

Hey Gnomon - it was a joke. Ha-ha. Geddit?

if its a london bourgh then it is in Lonodn.

you can write anything on your address London, Surrey, Wales, Mars, as long as the house number and post code are correct (and probably the road name). Since it used to be part of surry, people still use it as on the addess, like pople in Romford and Ilford still Essex & Manchester use Lancashire

*checks*

Croydon is in Greater London

That explains it then - everyone must still use it in theri addresses. I noticed that the council don't though.

Gosh, all that time I thought I was in Surrey...

don't worry, there are thousands of people in Romford and Ilford who still claim to live in Essex

Thanks for the input everyone. I'm working on these corrections and I'll put them up as soon as possible.

Regarding the county boundary there are a number of areas that use Surrey in their postal address, which is a left over from when they were part of the old county area. Croydon is one, Kingston, Richmond, Mitcham, New Malden and Chessington are others. In fact I only included Kingston in this piece because it is the administrative centre of Surrey and I'd regard it as something of a special case.
It's a pity because the modern boundary excludes several places I would have liked to have included, not least being Richmond and Richmond Park, Richmond Palace, Kew Gardens, Chessington World of Adventure and others.
DK

I've been doing reserch into postcodes for an EG entry (manly cause I keep getting stuck into these debates (well, not debate, because I am right, but anyway)

As long as the Postcode and Post Town are correct, it doesn't matter what you include as a county, the letter will get there. Claiming that people still use Surrey is their Postal address is just saying that residents of Surrey haven't yet caught up with boundary changes that happened 40 odd years ago (or don't understand how the postal system works)!!

Corrections made and additional info added.
DK

This is a cool entry.

I'm presuming, as a foreigner, that somehow London has its own countysworth of sovereignty that it is allowed to extend it as it pleases? Cities stop at County boundaries in California. New incorporation is required if the residents wish to live somewhere with an urban authority-and-services level, so this section reads strangely to me.

Surry->Surrey

I see Hogs Head in one place in your Entry and Hogshead in another. Are they both correct? If separate words is right, should it be Hog's Head?

List of (places?) starting Bagshot....ending Nutfield. I don't understand it.

Mosque->mosque

Britain, Shan Jehan...-> Britain, Shan Jehan. It

Sentence starting "At the high point..." It's a long one and should be broken up somewhere, but I don't understand it so I don't have any suggestion here.

London's population-> you seem to have an odd looking apostrophe here. I can't duplicate it with my own keyboard so I don't know how to say what it is. It resolves oddly in my browser.

Spa->spa

Is the A24 open to the public?

Sentence "The grounds of the house...." Also too long for me to understand, sorry.

D'Albernon is written in two different ways. I don't know which is correct, but one of them likely is not.

...horse racing .->horse racing. (you've got an extra space before the full-stop)

High Sea Change
Thanks for your comments, I'll work on them and post the changes up later.

I can't tell you how many times I've read this thing through and 'still' missed these mistakes. argh!

Thanks again
DK