Dumpy Dave versus Andy Murray

Draad, if Moffie meant it the way you are imlying then he would not have gone out of his way to justify the term with reference to Oscar and co......not to mention the extract on Leeds. I think its best you stick to being a Dutchman!!!

"....rather spoilt now by his removal to some provincial dump." Seems to me that's exactly the context I was using it. Nothing to do with actual geographic partitions....instead a reference to somewhere outside the major cities. Bumblef**ck as the Americans so eloquently put it.

So your reference to provincial city was what exactly?

Some city in the sticks....not London.... ie a provincial city.

So are you saying Leeds is not a major city in England?

I'm saying , as your legal colleagues did....that it's a provincial city. I'm off to dinner, take the time to regroup.

Well despite what you or my legal colleagues said, Leeds is not somewhere outside a major city, it is a major city.

 Leeds is one of the top 10 cities in the England, or even in the UK (Wales does not count for much and Scotland only has Glasgow and Edinburgh). 

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Anywhere higher up than Birmingham are referred to as Northern Monkies in England. Most of the best stuff to come out of England is from London and other Southern England places. 

England does not have provinces, we have shire counties, which is what JRR Tolkein was referring to in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Those of us who do not live in towns and cities live in the shires.  Simple as that.

You can quote as many novelists as you like, they were from a time when snobbery abounded and used different terminology than people do today. I have no idea why any document written in the latter years would have that term used. Maybe they can re-write it and make claim that England now has cantons as well !!!

And I do find it a bit rich that you keep going on about the English and their snobbish behaviour....you are the one who tries to belittle others about their jobs/cars/appearances and homes, Mozart. Always have and always have and always will, it seems.

They say the nouveau riche are always the worst sort of people. You prove that time and again.

Therapy might help with that and your general obsession with Saffex.

Draad, who said I side with anyone? Mine and Saffex's issues stem from personal attacks on each other and has little to do with anyone else.

Look, now I am agreeing with Saffex! Stick to being a dutchmen. Both Mozart and Saffex are probably better equipped to handle this counties vs province debate as both have lived in the place I gather and I know saffex still lives there.

Next you will be telling us Ventersdorp is a country!

 Better to be noveau riche than noveau poor dear Becs....and the idea that old money is better than new money is the height of snobbishness. In any case you know zip about my family and if and when we were any of these things. 

As for your argument about provincial not being a word that applies to England because it doesn't have provinces....absurd. The best English authors, old and new, apply it to English life. Here is another example, applied to accents:

"Public figures with recognisable provincial accents had mixed feelings about the findings.The Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough, who was awarded an OBE in the New Year's honours list, said he thought that prejudice against regional accents had died out."

Or this written by a Booker prize judge in the last  10 years.

I have just finished a stint as a judge of this year’s Man Booker Prize for fiction: a somewhat sobering four months involving three judging meetings, the reading of over 100 novels, countless telephone calls from newspapers' arts correspondents and – finally – the selection of a winner, D. B. C. Pierre’s Vernon God Little. Theoretically the experience of reading three contemporary UK novels a day for most of the summer ought to qualify one to make all kinds of dazzling pronouncements on the ‘state’ of writing in the UK. In fact, it does nothing of the sort. Just as biography is, of its nature, a snapshot – an individual intelligence appraised by another individual intelligence at a single point in time – so 100 UK novels represent only a fragment of the national literary consciousness, even if (as I rather doubt) such a thing truly exists.

That said, it would be odd if, in the reading of practically every significant novel published in the UK in 2003, certain themes and tendencies didn’t predominate (it was notable, for example, that in book after book the mostly loudly disparaged professional class was journalists). One of the most striking tendencies of the original longlist of 23 novels was the variety of distinctive ‘regional’ English locations on display – novels that were not only set beyond the metropolitan corridor formed by the M25 motorway but were clearly making an aesthetic virtue out of their distance from the heart of literary UK.

Thus Carol Birch’s Turn Again Home – my own favourite among the books submitted – was a multi-generational Manchester saga; John Murray’s Jazz etc took ineradicable root in its author’s native Cumbria; while Julia Darling’s The Taxi-Driver’s Daughter was similarly attached to Newcastle. Pride of place in this pantheon went to Clare Morrall’s Astonishing Splashes of Colour, a first novel by a Birmingham school-teacher which got as far as the final six-book shortlist. Taken together, they suggest that the ‘provincial’ strain in British writing, observable at any time over the past ten years, is rapidly becoming one of its dominant forms.

Agree Becs, the nouveau riche are among the worst kind of people and, unfortunately, Moffie is also the the worst kind of nouveau riche . . . the type with no class or breeding who simply has to blurt out to everyone how much money he allegedly has as well as all the latest tacky, ostentatious and vulgar items he bought with it.

 So lets just make sure I understand this-

 Same as now, but I joined shortly before the site went down.

Brilliant one Beeno10. I will note this for your performance review come the end of the year.  The man is heading for Beeno 9 status if he keeps this up.

Thanks Draad. Just asking because I'm normally pretty good at remembering names and I saw somewhere that you said you knew me from back then but I didn't remember you. I was wondering if that was because you used another name but I see that's not the case. Thanks for the reply.

No, it's better to be rich like the British Aristocracy that Becs so reveres. The kind that left for the USA after WW1 to line up rich American heiresses as wives,  to save their crumbling British manor homes. See Downton Abbey, which is based on a true story.  In England that passes for class.

I had to go into town yesterday and decided to do my good deed for the day. I popped in at the Reading County Court in Friar Street and told them that I am there to save them from further embarrassment. I said that they should change the signage on the outside of the building. It should be Reading Provincial Court, and not County Court.

Nice touch, but you could have saved yourself the trouble by just looking at my post with the sub heading "Scenes From a Provincial Life"....conveniently posted above. The argument has been settled in my favour.

I had to go into town yesterday and decided to do my good deed for the day. I popped in at the Reading County Court in Friar Street and told them that I am there to save them from further embarrassment. I said that they should change the signage on the outside of the building. It should be Reading Provincial Court, and not County Court.

Hahaha....is that your idea of a rebuttal or are your fingers just slipping off the keys again.

Oh boy, so we know that England is divided into counties, not provinces and for those of us who live here, know that the term 'provincial' is not used widely for its not applicable - why would anyone use the term - I for one have never heard it used. We also know that Leeds is a major city, sitting third in the UK after London and Birmingham 

Moffie if only you knew what a complete idiot you have made of yourself on this thread. Your pompous disregard for the facts is an eye opener. Who the fuck do you think you are telling English people on this site that 'provincial' prevails in England.

Allow me to solve the problem. Widely used by whom? This is the key question. If educated intelligent persons then Moz is correct. If folk on the street - those like ou snapster - then he is wrong. 

Puleeze....the definition of provincial is right there in the Oxford dictionary. It's a major theme in British literature as shown above and is used to describe Leeds in something as conservative as a Law journal. Educated people would have no difficulty understanding or using the word.  Your dumb brain and that of Becs and sensodyne is locked into the fact that Britain has counties.....and can't get unlocked to understand that , like "Catholic" , it has two meanings. Brain lock from a very stupid man.

We know it has different meanings you stupid idiot, but you referencing Leeds, the 3rd major city in the UK as a provincial city clearly indicates to us exactly what you meant when it came to 'provincial' you arrogant, ignorant twat. Its bad enough having to listen to you lie and fabricate to many on here, but to have the arrogant audacity to dictate to English people and those of us that live here that a particular phrase is widely used when it is clearly not, is beyond reproach,

Holy shit. Can you believe it? The senile old turd is still at it. He has also added another item to his resume. He is now a judge of British literature as well. That is now apart from the fact that he apparantly knows more about the British political set-up than the Brits themselves. They have all been living in counties for hundreds of years and he now reckons they have in fact been living in provinces.What next? The earth is flat? The moon is made of cheese?Where does this old geezer dig up the crap that he comes up with?

The mole bongi arrives back on the scene.

Actually no, I'm just quoting a judge of British literature.....but the distinction may be a little challenging for you.

Listen you old pickled goat testicle. Normally, when you quote someone, you at least put a name to it. Not so? Where did you buy your PhD? Wallmart?

Moffie you stupid twat, you used the Leeds reference obviously thinking it would gain you some ground as a provicial city - but alas you are too bloody stupid to realise that Leeds is anything but a provincial city.

Dave my first line job was running the UK sub of a US commercial appliance maker. We had branches in Leeds and Newcastle. We studied both markets and closed down Newcastle.....believe me I know Leeds. It's an important provincial city....not only my words , but the words of the Journal of Criminology. Case closed.

Ah yeah good one, we have Leeds sitting behind London and Birmingham as the third largest city in the UK and given the UK's global status, you expect us to believe it is a provincial city - ie somewhere outside a major city as you put it.

No I'm saying it's a provincial city.....much like Chicago, a vastly bigger metropolis, is a provincial city. As is Birmingham, Munich, Adelaide, Atlanta, and Shenzhen. These are not the primary cities the international community accesses....their role is a regional role.

Moz, its not about believing, I KNOW the word provincial is not widely used in England, just like I know Leeds is a major city in England.