Geography lesson from the BBC

Something horrible happened in Carshalton last week. It was widely reported. Children died. A true tragedy. But something I'd prefer not to think about, let alone write about.

Moving on then, to its reporting by the BBC. For the last three days they referred to the location only as Carshalton (pronounced "Carsholton", apparantly). I was wracking my brains. Surrey. It must be in Surrey. Or Lancashire. I'm sure. Lancashire. It must be a huge place for them just to be referring to it alone, and not a County. "Consett", they might say, without needing to add "Co. Durham". Then the penny dropped. They'd simply forgotten that those of us outside of London ("Who?" I hear them cry!) might just not realise where a small bit of the Borough of Sutton might be. So London I settled upon, and the Beeb kindly included "Carshalton, South London" for me today as proof that someone else has been complaining, and that I wasn't that far out with Surrey as my first guess after all.

If they are not careful, all sorts of things, such as a groundswell of support for a genuine alternative to all that's in Westminster now (i e clambouring to support detention without trial and human-animal crossbreeding) could be happening in the provincial, irrelevant North and they wouldn't even notice.