Amandaland - location confusion?

[Cardiganray]

Can anyone clear up for me where Amandaland is set? They talk about South Harlesden ‘so ha’ but then it’s the Hounslow football team? These are totally different parts of London. Am I missing something?

Thankfully I have only heard of these London areas but have no idea where they are, or where they are in relation to each other. And I don’t know which area is ‘better’ than the other. But this sort of thing is very irritating I know.

I thought motherland was set in Acton and the kids were all going to ‘boundary road academy’ or some Catholic school with nuns, and Anne had a bigger house with a garden and lived in Acton? They’re now in ‘SoHa’ and Anne’s in a smaller house and has Darius and two other boys called Finn and Owen but she had a baby girl called Niamh in Motherland?

So are we supposed to think that at the end of y6 for Darius, Georgie, Liz’s eldest, Jade and Ivy , in the Motherland timeline, that Liz, Kevin, Julia stayed in Acton , Anne moved to ‘SoHa’ and Amanda moved to Chiswick and remarried - so her second marriage, the divorce isnt the same divorce as Jonny?

Also I’m born and bred living Manc so I just don’t get the London areas I do look them up on Wiki sometimes haha. If anyone could translate into Manchester suburbs I’d love it 😂😂😂 Im assuming it’s like Amanda moving from Hale to Stretford and trying to say it’s because Stretford is ‘up and coming’ 😁 (disclaimer I loved in Stretford as a kid no shade lol)

I've not watched it but Harlesden is about 10-15 minutes north eastish of Acton and Chiswick is about the same but south of Acton. No idea why they'd be playing football in Hounslow

I don’t remember Chiswick being mentioned at all in Motherland, as they all had houses that would be £1.5 million+++ if they lived in Chiswick, and they were all always driving everywhere, I had assumed it was somewhere a bit further out than Chiswick.

Dunno about the locations but where have all Anne's other kids gone, didn't she have millions of them and a baby right at the end of Motherland?

South Harlesden and Hounslow are about eight miles apart. It’s not that far.

And to be fair they do all drive to get to the football. No one arrives on foot.

I don’t remember any mention of Chiswick either.
Queens Park was mentioned when Julia was driving Geoff and Elizabeth.

I thought it was Queens Park. Don’t think it was ever Chiswick so not sure how that’s now come into it.

She's moved from Chiswick and Hounslow isn't far from Chiswick.

Would imagine they played in H whilst living in C and have continued to do so despite the move.

I think they lived in Ealing/Acton but Amanda said it was Chiswick
In terms of why they play for Hounslow tho, I have no idea. It would make far more sense for them to play for Harlesden, it makes no sense for the writers to make them play in Hounslow.
Also, where are the majority ethnic residents of Hounslow, or bloody Harlesden for that matter?
Extremely annoying but I managed to overlook it for Joanna Lumley.

They were removed by social services and put into care
ive just made that up I don’t know

Oh my good grief.
It's the tv location pedant performers. Do you think they just decided to base her in south harlseden and have to tean play in hounslow for alliterative purposes?
Or might, just might, some writers have the brains to do a bit of research about locations, how the subject(s) of their script live, etc.
It's not like they live in London and are driving to Cardiff to play.
Also, people do play sport out of their own postcode. They don't get electrocuted of they leave their council-tax area... it's not like the Poor Law rules.

Very kind of you to overlook these 'irritations'. The writer(s) must be so relieved.

There’s a lot more discussion about the inconsistencies on this thread!

I don’t live in London so would have been none the wiser about the distance between locations.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/telly_addicts/5259545-amandaland?page=4&reply=142021965

Heh, spot on.

This has been raised on several threads and people are really overthinking it. As your kids get older, you don't need to stick to anything being as local. I live in SW London, my DS plays for a football team in Surrey. He does this because it's not that far and had places at his level at the time we were looking. That's all. None of the locations in Amandaland are that far from each other, especially if you have a car.

Chiswick backs on to Acton and Chiswick is in the borough of Hounslow.

This is dumb. It's TV for goodness' sake, learn to suspend disbelief about locations!

Bond parked his Aston Martin outside my office in the last film. Have I been working for M16 all these years and had not realised?

The school in original Motherland was shot at Southfields which is in between Bedford Park, (the north end of Chiswick) and the south side of Acton and a sort of nothingy area to the east before you get to Shepherds Bush. So Anne could have said she lived in Acton if she lived anywhere around there and Amanda would definitely definitely say she lived in Chiswick and have gravitated to the High Road for shopping etc. More of a challenge is where Liz is meant to have lived.

South Harlesden isn't a well known area, the joke is that she's calling it that to make it sound better. You'd probably call it Wormwood Scrubs IRL or maybe Park Royal? And the football club could easily be called Hounslow (is it called Hounslow?) and be based anywhere round there - a bit weird tho because Hounslow is more south West and nearer to Chiswick. Anne and Amanda might go back that way as they know it, but it'd be a coincidence if the downstairs neighbour also happened to go there as it's not close. It's very normal to live round here and drive about - it's just more the issue of why would you all go to the same club in the same different area.

Another newsflash; the Madam Blanc Mysteries, supposedly based in the South of France, was shot in Malta.

It is annoying if you know the area well!

It seems like Anne has moved as well as Amanda. Fits the narrative of Anne to move to the school she liked best. Amanda stayed in Chiswick and did private school. Then moved to the new school when she moved.

The football thing is baffling. Hounslow would take for ever to get to from there.

Also, SoHa sounds funny, but no one wants to live in Harlesden. It’s also more north of North Kensington, I feel there could be a better joke around that.

Maybe it was an away game?

Amanda takes her kids to Hounslow because she finds out that Della the chef has her daughter play in that team.

In first episode Anne tells Amanda that’s where a bunch of kids from that school play - presumably it was nearish and at a convenient time so one family joined and then their friends joined, not that weird.

Amanda’s kids weren’t previously playing football (in first episode anne tells her about the team and she immediately heads to sports direct to get football boots etc).

So it’s not that everybody independently chose that team, it’s that one family did, their friends joined, and then Amanda joined cos she wants to be friends with Della.