To wonder why people increasingly refer to places not in London as 'in London'

[redpipe]

I genuinely don't understand why people say they live in London when in fact they live in a town within the M25.
Croydon is not in London is it? Nor is Kingston. I never remember people referring to these towns as London years ago. Is this a new thing?

Watford is an overground, no?

I know it's all

Also I remember thinking that the smaller the number the closer in, but E4, SE2 and W7 are on the outside and SE16 quite close in

The postcodes are down alphabetically, with only the -1s saying anything about proximity. So SE1 is the bit of SE London by the river (Waterloo etc), but then SE2 is Abbey Wood (I think!) cause it's first in the alphabet. And yes, E4 is the bit of London we're moving to

Is this still going on? Croydon is definitely in London, greater or outer London, for all the reasons piglet et al have said. Whether anyone likes it or not, perception, no tube, doesn't feel right, wrong effect on house prices whatever. If you are on a greater London borough you can vote for a mayor and you are in London. Hence why the police officers standing on the platform at East Croydon station where I am now are Met police not Surrey police.

I reckon few years down the line they'll change it and anything inside the M25 will be London.

Agree about gatwick, it's in Sussex ffs not even Surrey.

What I was trying to say there was:

I know it's all good lighthearted fun, but what really fucks me off a tiny little bit about the whole premise of this thread is that nobody actively chooses to live in these crappy in-between kind of places. We are mostly forced here by the combination of ludicrous house prices and extortionate commuting costs. So this kind of smug postcode snobbery is really quite irritating. What do you want, a round of applause and a standing ovation for managing to bag yourself somewhere to live in zone 1/2 before the prices exploded?

Maybe that's a bit grumpy. But that is what a zone 5 commute does to you after a while.

I feel your pain OP. I'm from Lancashire, but if someone non-local asks I say I'm from near Manchester. Its just easier. Technically I live in greater Manchester but I'm not a manc

I think this is more likely explanation than someone giving themselves airs and graces by pretending to be from London.

Those of us who only go to London once in a blue moon will just give you a blank look, if you name the London suburb/satellite town. For example I've never heard of Coulsdon or Penge and have only have the vaguest sense of where Bromley or Kingston are. So from my point of view, if you life in any of these places, London is a far more useful descriptor.

I find myself doing it when asked where I'm from.

Someone very local to where I grew up, I will tell them the name of the one horse shite hole I grew up in. Anyone from the Midlands, I'll say Walsall (nearest postal town). Outside of the Midlands, say Walsall and the usual response is 'you don't sound Polish' so I just say Birmingham, as it allows people to place me. I don't assume they'll give a shiny shite about the intricacies of Midlands geography, postcodes or administrative history.

Glad to see you posting here again composhat

Thanks! I had a bit of a huff and flounced sometime in the summer after getting weary of the absurd threads. Things seem to have calmed down a bit now!

ComposHat - I used to live in Warsaw, and when I was back in UK and told people where I was living, they always used to hear Walsall!

Conversely, I have a friend who lives on the SE London/Kent borders and moans to people who don't know her, how long it takes her to commute from "Kent". So they are imagining leafy Sevenoaks or Canterbury, not somewhere nestling between Bromley and Sydenham!

That's not me, is it, MrsS ?

ComposHat - I used to live in Warsaw, and when I was back in UK and told people where I was living, they always used to hear Walsall

When residents from the Polish capital tell their countrymen they're from Warsaw did anyone respond with 'What, the medium sized industrial town in the English midlands?'

I think if it is a London borough it is strictly london but I don't think it matters much. To me it sounds posher to say Surrey but I don't really feel Croydon is Surrey.

"I think I regard proximity to the Thames as one of the most relevant factors in defining London."

But then you could say Windsor was in London

Indeed. In fact London would extend as far as Gloucestershire.

"Hence why the police officers standing on the platform at East Croydon station where I am now are Met police not Surrey police."

Surely they are BTP?

jI think I'm going to have to give up.

Do you know any English?
Have you heard of the queen?
Have you seen the British Isles on a map, even if you didn't recognise it?
Are you Irish, Scottish or Welsh?
Or a national/resident of a Commonwealth country?
Once upon a time, did the British colour your country pink, on a world map?

CONGRATULATIONS!

You are now a Londoner. You must stop speaking or making eye contact on public transport, and take lessons in cockney rhyming slang immediately, me old china.

PS Now you are a Londoner, you really should follow this lot on Twitter, to see some amazing aerial shots of your manor. (like the ones of Canary Wharf in the fog that were reproduced everywhere)

@MPSinthesky

You're welcome.

sapfu
love your post

no they were Met police - think the BTP call them in if things get heavy? (don't know what they were doing, they wer just standing there).

Also, when my car got pranged in Surrey (just) I reported it in Croydon whilst shopping there and they had to fill in an inter-force referal thingy and "send it to Surrey"

They were probably commuting

maybe they get "sent to Croydon" for bad behaviour?

flatmum you are thinking of 'sent to Coventry'
which of course is also in London

Bromley, Croydon etc are London Boroughs. However for correct postal
Address Bromley is Kent followed by BR postcode.

So it's in the county of Kent. And when you come to apply for secondary school places, you can apply to all the grammars in Kent.

If I am explaining where I live my answer will depend on who I am explaining it to. If its someone from overseas, I would say London. because its a London borough and well inside M25.

If I am explaining it to another London or SE resident, I would say Kent (Beckenham btw). Or sometimes the London part of Kent.

Let's face it, as someone said up thread, the inhabitabts of inner lond

Can't type on this bloody thing, I give up