London is a very big place. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a bigger city. However, I’ve only just realised how big it actually is.
I have been searching for a cheap return flight to Portugal, and so asked the helpful website for options when flying from all London airports. Apparently, the best value flights can be found from London Luton airport. I am not familiar with this particular London Borough, or it’s place on the tube map, though not being a native of the city it is not impossible that it’s been hiding an airport I have yet to notice.
It was only when checking it’s exact location that I realised London Luton, and actual Luton, are one and the same place! Who knew!
The draw of the bright lights and big city was clearly too much for little old rural Luton, and it has decided to copy it’s more illustrious ‘neighbour’ (a term I use loosely) by renaming itself. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So big up yourself London town!
Of course, we now have the problem of where to draw the line on what is and isn’t ‘London’?
Luton is actually nearer to Milton Keynes than to London, so I have no idea what all those Wimbledon FC fans were complaining about. It’s essentially just one big conurbation. Does anyone know where London actually ends, and the rest of the country begins?
What I don’t understand is who this renaming of Luton is designed to benefit? I can’t imagine anyone would book to fly from there without checking the Interweb like what I did, so surely they are trying to target the foreigners? How disappointed are they going to be when keeping an eye open for Big Ben and St Pauls, when their first few hours in the country are spent looking at downtown Luton (I’ve not been, is it as grotesquely dull as I imagine?).
Anyway, I have booked my cheap return flight and I’m flying from London Bristol International.
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AFC 30K · October 13, 2006 at 8:07 am
I currenty work in London (only 2 weeks to go) but I’m from the northern end of this fair country. I have a rule that if it’s inside the M25 it’s London and if it’s outside then it’s not.
This seems perfectly reasonable to me but my collegues from such places as Bromley, Croydon & the like insist that they live in Kent, or Surrey, almost like it’s a rural idle.
That said, if London Luton is in London then I must live closer to London than I thought being just down the road from London Gatwick. By that measure I think that London now stretches to Brighton….
philip · October 13, 2006 at 8:54 am
I like the idea of the rural idle.
Bromley is in Kent but is the London Borough of Bromley (where I live) , likewise Croydon in Surrey is the London Borough of Croydon, (where I work)
Cynics would suggest that this is a scheme to give “Mayor Ken” more cash – we have a Mayor Tax added to our Council Tax.
Also some talk about widening Ken’s jurisdiction over the train services into the capital from as far away as Sevenoaks
Oli · October 13, 2006 at 8:59 am
Just because an airport has London isnt in its name doesnt actualy mean its in both of them, Airports that arn’t (Or wern’t) near the city centre tend to use 2 cities name, so you know which way to head out of town, hence london luton, head out of london towards luton.
The only example I can think of being from teh north is Leeds Bradford (not the same place for all you southerners)
Admin comment by Mr Angry · October 13, 2006 at 9:13 am
AFC – Brighton, Londons gayest borough.
Philip – That’s practically central London right?
Oli – All people leaving Leeds head for Bradford?
Dancinfairy · October 13, 2006 at 9:47 am
I too have always thought if it is within the M25 then it is London. But by that reasoning even Gatwick could not be London Gatwick as it’s on the M23.
lloyder · October 13, 2006 at 9:58 am
You could have tried London Southend Airport as well
http://www.londonsouthendairport.net
Oli · October 13, 2006 at 10:11 am
Angry – The people of bradford are experts at leaving countries.
Murphy · October 13, 2006 at 10:12 am
I don’t think Luton is a place at all. It’s a term for something that extends a long way from the main thing, as in “Luton Bodied Transit” , or “Jordan’s Luton Breasts” etc.
Equine Pimp · October 13, 2006 at 10:15 am
Is Luton as dull as you imagine?
To look at from the air, yes. However a night out there is full of the joys of multiracial punch ups, the odd stabbing, many fun conversations with monosyllabic doormen (and angry locals), a treasure hunt for the only legal cab firm and strict policy of not making eye contact with anyone.
I speak with much authority on the subject as it is my home town.
On the actual topic of the rant, no one there understands the London bit either. If fact, several locals have asked if they now have to pay the congestion charge.
AFC 30K · October 13, 2006 at 10:22 am
Dancinfairy.
Gatwick on the M23 – yep, exactly the point of saying that London must now extend to Brighton.
Philip – Of course Bromley is a rural Idle
Croyden on the other hand…..
Angry – Brighton, London’s gayest borough? is there something in that about Brighton being gay??
Binty McShae · October 13, 2006 at 10:29 am
To be honest, I got caught out by that a few years back… didn’t have a clue where Luton was (why would I?). Having expected to be able to travel down to London on a sleeper and hop on the tube or in a cab to get to the airport I ended up having to take three trains to get there at 11pm (the time the last one got in) so I could check in at 6am (the first train next morning didn’t arrive until 8am). And anyone who has had to sleep in an airport knows what a bitch that is.
By the way, your comment over at Twenty Major’s about hating anonymous commentators? You might appreciate this cartoon… http://bluntcogs.blogspot.com/2006/01/anonymous-comments.html
Admin comment by Mr Angry · October 13, 2006 at 10:40 am
Dancinfairy – if you can’t walk to it from Big Ben it’s not in London – this is my new rule.
Lloyder – I don’t even know where Southend is
Murphy – she keeps her tits in Luton?
Equine Pimp – sounds ace mate…
AFC – nothing at all… ahem…
Binty McShae – Hello, that cartoon is ace, nice one. And a great name for a blog too…
Grigio Gringo · October 13, 2006 at 10:47 am
Not many female comments today but we all know about their sense of geography…
*runs away very quickly*
philip · October 13, 2006 at 11:11 am
I have discovered London Ashford Airport
http://www.lydd-airport.co.uk/
For Binty – I believe a similar integrated transport system is in operation at London Stansted – the trains stop operating long before the last plane arrives.
Chairwoman · October 13, 2006 at 11:40 am
Apart from London Stanstead, how about London Marston, which is actually in Ramsgate.
London stops where the postal districts stop, much harder now everybody has postcodes. That means that parts of some ‘London Boroughs’ are in London, and other parts aren’t.
BoyOnTop · October 13, 2006 at 12:05 pm
Frankly, you could just through out the term ‘England’ and replace with ‘London’. Anyone up for a trip to the London Borough of Newcastle?
greavsie · October 13, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Middlesex!
Admin comment by Mr Angry · October 13, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Grigio – You are a dead man. I’d like to remind all female readers that the views of commentors do not reflect those of de’management.
Philip – Christ, that’s quite close to me and I’ve never heard of it. Any more London airports out there?
Chairwoman – what is a postal district? Is it like a shilling?
BoT – It’s only a matter of time before the congestion charge reaches that far.
greavsie – as in ‘between top and bottom sex’?
philip · October 13, 2006 at 12:48 pm
You can have London Biggin Hill to add to the list [http://www.bigginhillairport.com/]
greavsie · October 13, 2006 at 1:54 pm
Yes.
Léonie · October 13, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Grigio Gringo you are indeed a dead man. I’ll just pop over to your house and kill you. Please could you give me some directions? With helpful crayon drawings of major landmarks like branches of Topshop and puppy factories? Thanks.
Luton is a shithole. The Arndale Centre is where they make chavs before they scatter them all over the rest of the country.
AFC 30K · October 13, 2006 at 2:13 pm
I forgot Biggin hill and I was there not 2 hours ago! and my collegues tell me that Biggin Hill is definitely in Kent….
Tim Worstall · October 13, 2006 at 2:29 pm
Ah, so you’re going to Faro then? You only need Luton if you want to come to Lisbon (although Monarch out of Gatwick is just as cheap).
Admin comment by Mr Angry · October 13, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Philip – I’m making that 7 London airports and counting. Any more for any more?
greavsie – I’m not sure, but is that a request?
Léonie – go on, kill him to death! And puppy factories? Are we talking ‘puppies’ as in ’shirt potatoes’?
AFC 22-ishK – Is it the chav way of saying Bigging Hill?
Tim – Hello (look everyone, it’s the blogfather!). Yup, off to see a mate in Lagos – which I now know is not the one in Nigeria (almost my most expensive error ever, thankfully the 8 hour flight time did confuse me a little…)
philip · October 13, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Errr – Eight actually.
List from Wikipedia
• London Ashford Airport
• London Biggin Hill Airport
• London City Airport
• London Gatwick Airport
• London Heathrow Airport
• London Luton Airport
• London Southend Airport
• London Stansted Airport
Admin comment by Mr Angry · October 13, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Philip – and Chairwomans London Marston airport…
Ldbug · October 13, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Having only been to London Heathrow and never actually in the city itself…
Cities here have a lot of suburbs which call themselves cities, separate from whichever hub it is they spawned from. There is one, though, that just keeps going, and going, Portland Oregon. Tiny actual ‘city’ but the city limits and the neighborhoods spread all the way to the northern state line! A very boring drive.
I saw something on London becoming a “Super City” in the future..I’ll try and find it again and post a link.
Salvadore Vincent · October 13, 2006 at 7:30 pm
For anyone who hasn’t been to Luton, the lack of Big Ben is perhaps the least of the disappointments.
Greavsie · October 13, 2006 at 7:58 pm
No.
Oh, and the place is pronounced ‘La-gosh’. (A Portuguese colleague from that town went postal after I pronounced it ‘Lay-gosss’)
happy golfing.
ellie · October 13, 2006 at 8:25 pm
OK. Now I’ve noticed you’ve used the term ‘interweb’ in a few posts. Is this a joke? I assumed it was at first. But now I’m not so sure b/c you have used it so consistently. Is this a cultural thing i haven’t yet picked up? Do you freakin’ Brits say Interweb instead of Internet?
Confused, Ellie
Oli · October 16, 2006 at 8:43 am
Ellie – Everyone else in the world uses the term interweb, we just let you carry on as ou do because we think its funny.
philip · October 16, 2006 at 12:47 pm
London International Airport….Ontario, Canada stretching the concept a bit far now unless for a Pub Quiz question
as in “Name all 10 London Airports…..”
I Am Livid » Cock and Balls · December 2, 2008 at 7:32 am
[...] have travelled to or from most airports in the UK. Most of the nine London airports, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Luton, and of course Birmingham [...]
Alex · September 14, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Not being funny but Luton holds one of the London airports, thats why its called London Luton Airport, the town isn’t called London Luton but its obviously in the same metropolitan area. Its roughly 30 miles outside of central London. Its about 25 mins train ride into central London. Often you hear certain places with London mentioned in them up to about as far as Luton or similar distance out in other directions for certain sporting clubs etc. E.g The London gliding club on the downs outside dunstable.
Go to any major city in the world and almost all of their airports are just outside the main city in the surrounding area.
Its very common to have satellite towns and cities surrounding a bigger city in Europe to form a metropolitan area. You have the main connurbation and then islands of cities that orbit it where many people commute to the main city for work or leisure but still enjoy some countryside or more leafy towns. In America and Australia etc this is far less common, its most often a big connerbation then nothing, usually quite a drive before reaching another area.
The actual city of London is only 8,000 inhabitants which is tiny, then the connurbation is made up of 30 odd cities that ajoin in one urban area and this is what makes up the main body of London known as Greater London.
In most other major cities in the UK the Greater area i.e greater manchester or greater glasgow etc includes the sattelite towns and cities which makes more sence, after all it represents the entire metropolis, not just the main body.
Due to faster transport people often commute from outside of the metropolis and sometimes metropolises can border each other, e.g Greater Liverpool, Greater Manchester share some of their satellite towns in the greater zone.
It doesn’t stop there, metropolises can and do team together to form mega opolises such as the northern front which contains greater liverpool, greater manchester, greater Leeds or West Yorkshire, Greater Sheffield, Hull, Preston, Blackpool. All those cities form a united mega opolis that work together in business and shared interests, i.e council eligients. This doesn’t mean they are connected as one urban connerbation but their metropolitan areas cross or are very near to each other. Other examples, Greater Glasgow and Edinborugh, Tyne & Wear and Teeside form the north East mega opolis. East midlands, west midlands, south wales, south hampshire, Greater Bristol etc etc. Often people think of a city as being all there is and forget about the metropolitan area and how it all works together. London wouldn’t be London without its metropolitan work force. I’m sure it would still be pritty good but not as powerful. The actual metropolis, if you consider north to Luton, south to Crawley, east to southend and West to Reading is around 15-16million people, thats a lot!
There are talks of building an outer orbital motorway with a rail corridor along side joining up the outer metro regions.
There are also talks of running London overground metro train out as far as these regions.
Of course Milton Keynes, Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton etc are outside of this metropolitan zone but they still can be fairly good cities to commute from and people often do although at this distance you can expect the commuting cost to be very expensive and far more than most people, excluding high paid workers will be prepared to pay.
Regarding Milton Keynes, its a very young city, the idea is it will eventually form major hub of its own with similar significance to cities like Bristol, Sheffield or Nottingham.
I hear what your saying though, there isn’t a clear understanding to the general public unless your well read about where the boundries are for the metropolises in the UK. There are efforts to unite councils in different regions of the country to work under a metropolitan title. This is good for business as it gives a better understanding to the public where the main focus on dominance or economic power is for each region.
Actually few cities in the UK are outside or far from a metroplis. Examples would be Plymouth in Cornwall, Norwich in Norfolk & Aberdeen in Scotland as well as Inverness. Efforts are being made to increase the populations in these cities so they can become self sufficient / more powerful in the global market. Transportation links are being planned to greatly improve these cities and tie them into the interconnected rest of the UK.
Inverness is the one exception. Due to being deep in the Scottish mountains it will always be that city away from everyone else, but that kind of nice to have one like that, as its main industry is travel and leisure I am sure it will be very successful being “off the grid”.
London