BrE or AmE in your country??

<<and the old imperial measures, to me, look like something out of the Ark, something that belongs to ages past. >>

Are people's weights still emasured in "stones", in the UK? This always seemed quaint to me.

Bubbus: <<Are people's weights still measured in "stones", in the UK? This always seemed quaint to me.>>

Yes, and it's no quainter than pounds or the Chinese jin ("catty").

Sorry... the above post was by me.

Jasper, I think you miss my point . . . to the extent that you are now putting words in my mouth. I never stated that the U.S. was nearly as over populated as Brittan. I wished to call in to question that there are regular places where you can go for HUNDREDS of kilometers in the U.S. where you cannot see a house or a car. Even those back roads that you listed have small towns and villages in between that break down your assertion. I take issue not with you statement that there are remote places in the U.S. that are seemingly unpopulated but with your exaggerations. Such things can often lead to misconceptions which are never a healthy thing.

By the way, I thought you were foreign because you used kiloliters instead of miles, you said wee hours instead of early hours or small hours of the morning and you said across the pond instead of across the Atlantic or the ocean. Though these are minor things, they are more commonly Britishisms than Americanisms. They are not entirely alien, but they would not seem like automatic usages to most Americans. Perhaps you have picked up this strain here on Antimoon.

I find that funny that you thought Jasper wasn't American because of a few choice English terms he used. Yet just read a post by almost any Englishman and it will be littered with 'Americanisms'. For the record, I think Jasper is simply using language targeted at who he was aiming the post at. And anyway, I am glad to see it - it's only right!!

By the way, I travelled alot of Western America a few years back and although I wasn't keeping count - I am pretty sure that I went a few Hundred Kilometres without seeing what even resembled a town or dare I say a house. But I am English and even popping next door is a mission.

By the way Cian, mate, you seem to have a bee in your bonnet about this mileage thing - let it go sunshine.

Cian: " I wished to call in to question that there are regular places where you can go for HUNDREDS of kilometers in the U.S. where you cannot see a house or a car. Even those back roads that you listed have small towns and villages in between that break down your assertion."

I plead guilty to exaggeration, Cian. But I reassert that I was not exaggerating by very much. Cian, I really wish I could take you into the back roads of Nevada. (Let's not even bring Arizona, NM, or even California into the mix; yes, there are very remote places in California.) On those back roads, it is indeed not only possible, but very easy to travel very many miles (kilometers) without seeing a car or house; maybe not hundreds of kilometers, but most certainly dozens. I know, because I've done it.

As Pub Lunch has correctly noted, I spoke in kilometers because I was addressing my point to Europeans. I was speaking in terms that they could understand.

"By the way, I travelled alot of Western America a few years back and although I wasn't keeping count - I am pretty sure that I went a few Hundred Kilometres without seeing what even resembled a town or dare I say a house. "

Thank you, Pub Lunch.

It's frustrating to an extreme to be telling the truth while still being disbelieved. I sometimes want to bean some of the posters in this thread.

Blimey Jasper, I tell you mate - I couldn't believe the vast expanse of your nation. Really, flipping heck, vvvaaaasstttt. What a wonderful time that was. As I said, I am a mere Englishman and distance of journey is a concept that I probably do not grasp but honestly - I did not see a goddamn thing in some of the places that I saw. And good job too - for that was the whole point.

As I have repeatedly said, Americas ('s??) greatest gift is its incredible land. Man, I hope to see some of that again.

Let's get some perspective in here...from a British perspective - distance, remoteness, locality, crowdedness, isolation and the number of villages per square kilometre or standard mile or yard or cubits or shekels or whatever dimension or currency which takes your fancy.

One set of my grandparents live in a very lovely, very picturesque part of England.....just a couple of kilometers (miles if you're not an arden EU fan) - in a small village jjst outside of a small town with a population of about 9,000.

One grandparent is Scottish, the other is English and on retirement they went to live in Herefordshire - her original home area, close to the spot where Herefordshire meets both Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, at a spot appropriately known as the Three Counties Oak....a tree literally marks the spot

Below is a YT clip of the annual Boxing Day (26 Dec) Meet of the local Hunt and Hounds in the High Street of this town. Ledbury is full of black and white timbered buildings, one being a Market House dating back to 1546 - you can see it in the clip below - and it has a huge parish church, with a separate tower, dating back to 1288.

Ledbury has literary links - it is the home of the one time Poet Laureate John Masefield (who wrote Sea Fever among other things), the poetess Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Langland (who wrote Piers Plowman) and the American writer Robert Frost lived just outside Ledbury for a good number of years.

Ledbury lies at the southern end of the Malvern Hills, and this is Elgar Country - Sir Edward Elgar was born just outside Worcester and is buried in West Malvern, part of the town of Great Malvern which in turn is a town 7 miles from Ledbury, with a population of 33,000 people. 7 miles beyond Great Malvern and you are in Worcester city. It is 4 miles from the M50 motorway connecting the Midlands to South Wales.

Ledbury is 119 miles from Charing Cross Station in Central London, and from Ledbury train station you can get direct trains to Hereford, Worcester, London Paddington, Birmingham New Street, Nottingham, Lincoln, Oxford, Reading and many smaller intermediary towns and villages on the way to all of them.

Ledbury Boxing Day Meeting of the Hunt

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuur-69BNvI

I have been down there to stay with them several times...the town is slap bang in the middle of a triangle with the cities of Hereford (pop. 55,000) Worcester (pop 87,000) and Gloucester (pop 84,000) all equidistant at 15 miles from Ledbury, and each situated at each of the three points of the triangle. Each city is totally different in character from the other two and even their respective cathedrals are vastly different in architectural style.
The accents of each city are quite distinctly different - that of Hereford city seems to have a sort of Welsh lilt to it in many of its people - the border with Wales is about 25 miles to the west of Hereford. Standard English English RP is pretty well established, too. Hereford has the rustic air of a country town about it - situated on the banks of the River Wye which has its source over the border in Wales although it is notorious for traffic holdups due to sheer volume and they are soon to have a new by-pass link to alleviate some of this problem and thus avoiding congestion in the city areas.

Hereford has a premier racecourse. The surrounding countryside is gloriously beautiful with a host of little villages dotted about at regular intervals, many of them contianing black and white timbered buildings, and the mountains of Wales visible to the west.

Gloucester city is actually in a different region - the South West region of England - the other two are in the West Midlands region. The overall accent of Gloucester has a distinct West Country burr in many of its people, but to me as a Scot standard English English RP predominates. Only 7 mies away from Gloucester is Cheltenham (pop 53,000) - a very graceful Regency town famous for a whole host of things including its exclusive shops and a very posh girls' college and here in Cheltenhamyou are likely to here some mega posh accents.

Worcester is closer to the Birmingham/West Midlands Metro area (pop in excess of 2 million - Birmingham itself being 40 miles from Ledbury; Cardiff, the capital city of Wales, is 42 miles to the south west). The accent of many Worcester people seems to me to bear some resemblance to the well known and not particularly well loved Brummie accent.

Worcester is the home of Worcestershire sauce, and it, too, has a premier racecourse. It has the air of the "industial Midlands" about it although the surrounding countryside is very beautiful with the Malvern Hills to the south west as a backdrop.

Whichever of those three cities you travel to from Ledbury, on the three respective main roads leading to them, you pass through a string of villages, all separated by the lovely countryside I mentioned, and I've already mentioned the sizeable town of Great Malvern, half way between Ledbury and Worester.

That more or less gives you a good idea of perspective in much of lowland Britain, England in particular. As we said before - compared with America nowehere in Britain is really far from anywhere else!

I am not sure that four posts on a topic is enough to legitimize the statement that I have "a bee in my bonnet" when by and large there were people who wrote far more on the subject, but OK. Pub Lunch. If I do, then it is about the misinformation not the number of miles. Misinforming people bothers me. By the way, I have spent a good amount of time roaming the county roads in the Basin and Range Region of the U.S. Jasper. Coincidently, I was looking for you at the time or rather, jasper, jade, fluorite, calcite, etc.

As far as trying to get a more realistic perspective out people, which took more work than it should have, I have this to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YGXsw3XK9I&feature=related

<<Let's get some perspective in here...from a British perspective - distance, remoteness, locality, crowdedness, isolation and the number of villages per square kilometre or standard mile or yard or cubits or shekels or whatever dimension or currency which takes your fancy.>>

Another way to get an idea of "remoteness" in a developed country is to look at light pollution. Suppose we compare the US:

http://www.jshine.net/astronomy/dark_sky/

and

http://www.lightpollution.it/worldatlas/pages/fig2.htm

With Europe:

http://www.lightpollution.it/worldatlas/pages/fig4.htm

Specifically, let's compare Scotland with the US east of the Mississippi River. You'll find that much of Scotland is darker than most of the Eastern US. Also, the "black" areas in Scotland, the remotest areas of all (Western Isle of Lewis near Aird Uiq, and the northwest Scottish "mainland" near Kearvaig and Sheigra, and also the Flannan Isles), are much more extensive that the almost non-existent "black" area(s) in the Eastern US (only the Minnesota Arrowhead area near Canadian Border).

It looks like much of Scotland is more remote than much of the Eastern US.

(Of course, much of the Western US and Canada is more remote than Western Europe.)

↑ I don't believe you, Cian. Otherwise, you would have known that there was significant verisimilitude in my statements.

"It looks like much of Scotland is more remote than much of the Eastern US. "

I've wondered about that.

A cursory glance at a map of Northern Scotland does seem to indicate very remote areas, but Damian would know for sure.