Why say UK when they mean England?

[catchafallingstar]

Blaming the news for this.....UK in arctic conditions...bla bla bla....

So what they really mean is that the horrific weather that has been plaguing Scotland and Northern Ireland since mid November has finally reached London.
So now it is newsworthy, it warrants more than a tag line at the end of the main news. In fact there are even special one off news programmes about it.

This has been going on for a while. Most airports in Scotland have been closed but didn't get interview after interview with passengers moaning about it.

32 inches of snow fell in one night in the town where I live but 'down south' gets a dusting of 2 or 3 inches and people are attempting to ski to work!

With all the talk of how unprepared the UK is, I don't think this Kind of news mentality does not help. Yes we now the weather is awful but is has been for over a month now...get on with it! I'm sure there are some decent news worthy stories out there!

Rant over.

Disclaimer: I now fully expect numerous posts telling me how much snow you have in your area, how disabling it is, what relatives are stuck at the airport, how it's awful etc....... But this has been happening for over a month!!
The 'UK' may be expecting arctic conditions but places like Northern Ireland,Scotland and Wales have just had to cope with it without it being glorified by the BBC news at every opportunity...

If Builth Wells is under 2ft it only really affects Bulith Wells, if Cardiff is 2ft under it affects a lot of S. Wales and SW England, if London is 2ft under it affects half the country. If Heathrow closes it affects people all over the world. My village gets cut off we all chat about it in the pub and the shop, not even people in the next village are bothered.

We as a country are London-centric, the UK economy largely depends on London.

I can accept that the UK economy depends largely on London. I cannot accept the level of ignorance in the media - William to be next King of England, english pounds, 'national' stories that only refer to one quarter of the UK...the list is endless.

It is universities nationally that are putting up fees - the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly are choosing to make cuts elsewhere to subsidise their students. English students will have to pay to study in Wales and Scotland as well.

No, making cuts elsewhere does not mean that fees nationally for Scottish students are going up to the £9K that the English universities will be able to charge. The Scottish News has the story here

Strawberry - I'm not saying that a local area (ie a village or town) news story should be given the same national coverage, but then the other 4 countries which comprise the UK are hardly local areas, are they?

3 countries

Actually I think it is so bad that there are some people who don't know anything about the rest of the UK, I will give a couple of conversations I have had as an example.

person: Where is the River Dee?
Me: There are 2 river Dees one through Chester and the other through Aberdeen.
Person: Must be Chester then because it says UK river and Aberdeen isn't in the UK.

Phoning from work to order something:
Gave work address.
telephonist: Where is ?
Me: Its on the x coast of Scotland.
telephonsit: Scotland, where's that? Is that abroad? we don't deal with abroad.
Me:Its part of the UK.
telephonist: Is it I have never heard of Scotland. Order cancelled.

Was told be someone else 'Oh I love Scotland especially the Lake District'

Yes Maisie. And if the rest of us can have back the £100m annual budget of S4C - the Welsh language TV channel, 25% of whose programmes are watched by no-one (even though I'm sure that they would cover the Builth Wells snow story) - maybe that will even it out.

Sounds familiar xstitch!

My (little England) sister was coming up for a few days holidays, staying at a B&B.

Her: Do they serve a full english breakfast?

Me: No, this is Scotland
Her: So what will they serve?
Me: If you mean bacon, sausage, egg etc then yes, you'll get a cooked breakfast
Her: Isn't that an english breakfast?
Me:

The one that has me shouting at the TV is "the Queen of England". No it bloody isn't - we have to pay for the wasters too, so get your facts straight.

But I presume Scottish universities will be charging English students? Welsh students will be susidised but the Welsh Asembly is cutting other budgets to pay for that, so it is affecting Welsh universities too, so definitly a national story. Also worth noting Scottish MPs are able to vote for English only acts of parliament in the UK parliament, no devolved government here!

Does S4C purport to be a national news programme Tondelayo? If not, I don't suppose you have a claim to the money.

Are we going to get into the subsidy of Scottish public services by all taxpayers in the UK? Because that will be fun.

xstitch, that is comedy gold, "I have never heard of Scotland". Shades of the late Jade and her 'isn't East Angular [sic] abroad?'

I was once in Cardiff with a Swedish friend of mine when she announced (in front of Welsh friends) "Cardiff is my favourite English town".

It's not a town. It's not in England.

"It's all the same" apparently - and this from a country where they have a drinking song about hating the people who live in the province nearest to Denmark, except when they're drinking the liquor that's brewed there and then it's fine.

Whether or not they charge English students is beside the point - I was specifcially talking about the news stories about the increases to tuition fees which only affected the English universities.

I'm perfectly aware that Scottish MPs can vote for English only acts - it's called the West Lothian Question. Not something I agree with either.

She is the Queen of England, and 16 other countries - would be a bit tedious to list all of them, no?

I know she was - but it was in response to my earlier post about a national news programme being slightly less than national.

Anyway, much as I love talking about the (English) limits of the BBC, I really better go and do some work!

I think the point I was trying to make in my original post was the fact that newscasters, ( yes mainly BBC) dress up England as the UK or Britain and given that excuse, English dominated stories fill the national news. The 'arctic conditions' is only one such story that has really bugged me. I'll save my rant on tuition fees for another day.

Yes Heathrow is in England ( woop de doo!) but that's just geography. If Edinburgh airport was the biggest airport in the UK, I fear we'd still hear about the snow falling in the south east.

Surprised how many people agree with me actually....

Prestwick's not snowed in; maybe we should move the functions of Heathrow there?

If it's a cooked breakfast in Scotland it's a 'Full Scottish Breakfast' difference being that the Scottish one has black pudding/dumpling instead of hash browns.

Are we going to get into the subsidy of English public services by all the North Sea oil revenue from Scotland? Because that will be fun.