Talk:Second city of the United Kingdom/Archive 1

message: This page has been separated from the main Second city article because of the controversial history  of the title of "second city of the United Kingdom". The constant edits and reversions to the UK section were seen as damaging to the development of the other nations' sections, so it was decided to confine the heated debate to this separate article. This will then, hopefully, allow the main article to develop in peace. I would ask any future editors to think twice before merging the two articles back together again. Thank you. Road Wizard 17:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Split from Second city article

message: There has been a long series of discussions about which city deserves the title of "second city of the United Kingdom", many of which can be found on the Talk:Second city page. Road Wizard 17:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Past discussions

message: Is this claim actually verifiable by reference to any kind of statistics?  I wouldn't be surprised if it's a student urban myth to impress freshers; I recall a few similar - equally unsubstantiated - claims about where I was at university (York).
And is a single busy bus route of any real relevance to this article?
PS I have made some edits to this article today to try to make this article a bit more objective than it is.  Your thoughts are appreciated - see the edit history for details.  Matthew 00:25, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As a York alumnus who knows what the number 4 is like on a bad day, I wouldn't be able to make any grand claims about York buses and keep a straight face. On the other hand I have heard various factoids not about Wilmslow Road but about Oxford Road, supposedly the busiest bus route in the UK, Europe or even the whole world depending on who you ask. Still, like you I question the relevance of bus frequencies to the second city debate. 172.206.82.254 03:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wilmslow Road bus route 

message: As predicted the back-and-forth additions for one city or the other has escalated into a neutrality dispute. I've reverted right back to the initial version of this article which I excerpted from Second city back in May, most of which is carefully phrased to take a neutral stance between Manchester and Birmingham. 
In general it avoids unnecessary detail, however I think there is a lot that could still be cut: I don't particularly see the usefulness of the 'Other criteria' section, for instance. -ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 14:54, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This looks good from where I'm sat.  And I wouldn't dispute the removal of the 'Other criteria' section.  The point of this article, IMHO, should be to describe the situation of the UK's second city as it is, not to advocate one city over another or to try to set out what the criteria for measuring a second city are.  The former is not a subject for Wikipedia, if I have the site's aims correctly interpreted, and the latter is a subject for the more general Second city page, unless there are specific criteria that apply to the UK alone. Matthew 19:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

text: This is an incredibly POV-ist and pro-Brummie-is-the-second-city-as-decreed-by-God page. I suggest we de-POV both this page and the Birmingham and Manchester pages to bring them back into line with Wikipedia NPOV guidelines. MarkThomas 11:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What, in particular? As I say above, the article has been very carefully phrased to take a neutral stance. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 12:24, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: NGB - for context, you may also want to refer to the discussion on the Talk:Birmingham page.  I would suggest that MarkThomas is pushing a POV agenda of his own, according to his own criteria, though your view may differ. Matthew 16:49, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

text: To clarify, the point on the Birmingham page is that there is considerable contention that Manchester is the second city, not Birmingham; this is so well known that it ought to be reflected in the intro, but users like Majabl and others who live in or around Birmingham (according to their pages) repeatedly try to claim on the page that incontrovertibly Birmingham is the second city; I think it speaks for itself that they have the POV and not me and those like me who try to correct this in the interests of a balanced WP. The POV on this page arises from the opening statements like "In England, Birmingham has generally been considered the second city since around the First World War [1]. More recently, many have claimed that Manchester deserves the distinction [2] [3]. " Firstly, if anything, the position was clearer historically that Manchester was regarded as second city; that is why for example it was the only city outside London to have national newspapers published there, and why in the early part of World War 2 it was considered as an alternative base of government if London became unlivable, just to give a couple of pertinent supporting arguments. Secondly, the joke immediately following the Manchester reference scorns a perfectly valid discussion. Manchester is effectively the number 2 outside London for governmental headquarters; for the media; for transportation (eg, Manchester airport); for conurbation population and by many other criteria. The whole discussion of "second city" on WP is distorted on WP by pro-Birmingham irrational commentators; survey after survey in the UK gives huge leads to Manchester for this role. Hence the NPOV warning. Really the whole thing should be edited. MarkThomas 18:59, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality dispute 

message: Expansion of this article under the different headings no longer seems possible with some many people breathing down your neck. Every little point you put in is scrutinized and most of the time opposed because it then makes this article to look like a "pissing contest" as someone said above. You would end up with someone saying that that point is making the article appear biased to one city causing someone to request a point to oppose it from the other city. Personally, I find this ridiculous and we should loosen up. If we cannot expand this article with all these restrictions, then the point of the article appears ridiculous. - Erebus555 17:37, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansion 

message: Technically, Westminster is counted as a city, even though it is in the centre of London. Nonetheless, would this qualify? Simply south 17:10, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because the capital city, London, covers Westminster. In fact, if you want to be very technical, Westminster is the actual capital city as it is where the British government is based! David 15:38, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Westminster 

message: Georgian Dublin was is often referred to as having been "the second city of the British Empire". it was obviously in the UK at the time. It should get a mention shouldn't it? Lozleader 19:56, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I dug into this a little when I was writing a brief overview of the history of the UK's second city at Second city.  In the end I didn't mention Dublin on that page because the impression I got was that Dublin was the second city of the Empire in the 18th century, but Ireland didn't become a part of the UK until 1801, by which time it seems to have been surpassed.  I certainly think that in the history section of this page it would be worth mentioning why Dublin wasn't the second city of the UK yet was known for a time as the second city of the British Empire. Matthew 23:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. it was before the Union. i should have spotted that. Lozleader 08:25, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No problem - I thought exactly the same as you before looking into things a bit more deeply!  Matthew 18:07, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dublin 

message: When Hong Kong was a part of the UK was it ever argued that it was its second city, or does this only take Great Britain as an Island into account? 84.70.158.149 14:25, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hong Kong 

message: Quite predictably, one particular editor, majabl, has just hosed the page down with fact tags. Come on - if you want to debate the facts, debate them, but don't destroy perfectly good readable pages. It's an abuse of the tag to do that and there is already an POV warning at the top. We already know from your track record majabl that you have a deeply pro-Birmingham agenda, and that's fine, just come clean about it and say that's your POV. Mine is that there is considerable dispute as to which is the second city and this article should reflect that. Anyone can play games with tags. MarkThomas 19:17, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record, I do not consider myself have a particular POV and am happy to concede all these points if they are satisfactorily backed up.  If not then they amount to nothing more than speculation - perhaps this is rigorous enough for you but I prefer a bit more meat to such things. My agenda, as you would term it, is pro-evidence, something you have in the past been poor at providing conclusively.  Matthew 20:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Just to expand a little further, you're again coming up with your own criteria, making assertions that support these criteria, and concluding accordingly.  This is far from encyclopaedic. Matthew 20:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

text: For over a hundred years, Dublin was part of the UK. Your point being?  Matthew 20:22, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits 

message: This article can't make its mind up between being "Second city of the United Kingdom" or the "Second city of England". The Birmingham v. Manchester lark really is an English matter - the second city of the United Kingdom is quite frankly got to be Edinburgh.
I see that Second city of England is a deadlink. Time for expansion? David 15:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you can cite Edinburgh, reliably, without it being original research, go ahead.  But quite frankly I think you have more chance of making a square circle.  And hence I don't see what an expansion would really add, unless you want to pull an article together about the time when Glasgow was the UK's second city.  Though that'd probably require a trip to the library rather than to the web, I'd imagine, to dig out decent sources.  Matthew 23:05, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  England v United Kingdom 

message: Just because Manchester wants to be the second city, or thinks it ought to be, doesn't mean that it is. This article makes it seem like its claim is almost as valid as Birmingham's. All the cultural garbage is unquantifiable. B'ham is twice as big as Manchester, and its metropolital area is also bigger than Manchester's. TharkunColl 12:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: This article is blatant POV

message: There is some disagreement about whether we claim Manchester to be the sixth or seventh most populous city in the UK (and, therefore, whether we claim Birmingham to be the first or second). While common sense says that London is obviously the largest city, I suggest that in a paragraph headed by the phrase 'based on formal city boundaries' we need to be more accurate. Greater London is not a city. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 12:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unlike Manchester, which claims a status it does not deserve, Brummies, without chips on their shoulders, have no trouble accepting that they're only the second biggest city, and not the first. And this makes Manchester either seventh or third, depending on whether we go by city or conurbation. TharkunColl 12:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, unless the wafer-thin margin in the official ONS estimates between the conurbation-popularly-accepted-to-be-Manchester (much disputed) and the conurbation-popularly-accepted-to-be-Manchester (much disputed) is wrong, which the ONS itself admits it well could be. Then the position would be (1) London (2) Manchester (3) Birmingham. However, other British conurbations are also potential contenders: West Yorkshire and Greater Glasgow / Strathclyde. The latter in particular has a good claim to be larger. So really your posed certainty on this issue TharkunColl is a lot of hogwash. You earlier stated that you intended to redirect this page to Birmingham - are you still going to? We're waiting. MarkThomas 12:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And as I've said before, to dispute the figures as published is POV and original research. For all you know they could be wrong the other way, and make B'ham even bigger. In short, we must rely on the official figures because that's what they are - official figures. If you average out their potential inaccuracies, it makes no sense to say that the figures for one or other of the conurbations is likely to be more wrong than the other one, so the result would still be the same - i.e. B'ham is bigger. TharkunColl 12:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's not original research, there are many articles about this in the press, etc. As regards the official figures, there are numerous ways to use statistics - for example, the figures on the article at the moment are not all the same year. The result of which conurbation is biggest would not remain the same if Manchester's population has for example grown just very slightly faster over the last few years than that of Birmingham. The gap between the conurbation populations is only very slight. MarkThomas 16:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to say I'm with TharkunColl on this one: if we're going to use the official figures then we can't second-guess them. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 17:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Wasn't suggesting we do Nick - but it would be useful to have the years the same, eg, all data for a given year, say, 2001 census - then we could compare like with like. MarkThomas 17:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sixth/Seventh 

message: There is no mention on Led Zeppelin of LZ being a "Birmingham band" - indeed, it is very clear that they were formed in London and performed internationally from the outset. Does the fact that Plant came from Walsall and Bonham from Redditch make them a Birmingham band? I think not. MarkThomas 16:40, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Led Zeppelin 

message: How about the fact that Tolkien was from B'ham? TharkunColl 16:48, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Why pop culture?

message: This article is again being spoilt by an unhelpful pissing contest. WHO CAN PISS THE HIGHEST/FURTHEST/FASTEST?! :-( Matthew 18:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But at the same time they're not supposed to be original research, which is what a pissing contest turns into being. Matthew 19:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Because it's not a page about which buildings are tallest, it's a page about the second city of the UK.  The original research comes first of all having the page argue which city is the second city, and second from deciding that tall buildings are a key factor in this argument. Matthew 21:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's not for me to say why tall buildings aren't a factor.  It's for anyone wanting to include them as a factor to cite why they are.  Until this is cited it is opinion rather than fact.  To thus include tall buildings as a factor without relevant citation is to publish the results of one's own thinking (the thought being that tall buildings are an important factor), thus being original research.  Matthew 23:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I am talking about the Wikipedia definition of original research, and you've even quoted the pertinent part yourself - 'It includes ... any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material'.  That's exactly what the uncited inclusion of tall buildings as a key factor in second-city status is ... as well as much of the rest of the article.  It needs to be curtailed.  Matthew 01:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Indeed you did, but I wrote the 'uncited inclusion of tall buildings as a key factor in second-city status '.  It's that tall buildings are a key factor that's uncited, not the heights of the buildings. Matthew 02:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Mark, go and get a good (preferably academic-level) dictionary.  Look up 'analysis' and 'synthesis', and consider the definitions in relation to the leap of logic that is 'tall buildings are a key factor in second-city status', without citation to evidence that this is the case.  Then see if you still think the same. This doesn't just go for you or for tall buildings, though, but for just about the whole of the rest of the page, which especially over the last day has just been turning into a growing list of pop musicians. Matthew 11:17, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pissing contest

message: After exhaustive study on Google, I have concluded that Birmingham is more pigeon-oriented than Manchester.  MarkThomas 18:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: B'ham also has more miles of canal than Venice (and far more than any other UK city), more trees per head of population than any other UK city, and is home to the balti. And since telephone exchanges are mentioned in the article, how about pointing out that Birmingham was given the code 021 (now 0121), next in line after London's original 01. This promted the B'ham city council slogan "021 - second to none". TharkunColl 18:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Apparently, the council publicist who first claimed that there are more miles of canal than Venice originally made it up, but then checked up and it turned out to be true. And it is true. I've never heard the one about the pot holes and suspect that it originates from someone who doesn't know B'ham, because there aren't any to speak of. Not sure about the Indian restaurants either, since Bombay's pretty big. B'ham certainly has loads though. TharkunColl 19:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Potholes - they're all on my road in Dudley.  You can almost get a whole car wheel into some, horizontally. Matthew 19:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Venice/Birmingham canal issue, whilst true, is also a bit of a red herring, given that the land area of Birmingham is far larger than that of Venice. As for potholes, isn't Walsall MBC even worse than Dudley MBC?  Doesn't really matter here, as neither of them have any claim to "second city" status. Fingerpuppet 22:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No idea about Walsall, but I've only ever driven through it on A-roads, so can't possibly speak for the quality of its council-estate roads! Matthew 23:53, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's also a popular myth, Venice has far more. Still, it has a certain charm. MarkThomas 23:18, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Birmingham has 35 miles, Venice 26 . TharkunColl 23:55, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I expect his slide rule was stuck. C'mon. Most of the canals in Birmingham are a closed, stinking mess. I am comparing sunlit canals with gondoliers to grubby little trash-strips. MarkThomas 00:14, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You must be thinking of Manchester's canals. In fact, those in B'ham are clean and well kept, and none are closed (I lived on a narrowboat for many years), and are now a big tourist attraction. TharkunColl 00:17, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure there's not a single piece of canal been closed in Birmingham, ever?  That's quite some claim. Fingerpuppet 00:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of them have now been renovated and re-opened. Birmingham is very keen on its canals, and many places in the city centre have luxurious canalside locations. Canals also run through all the major suburbs of B'ham and the Black Country. TharkunColl 00:28, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The more we hear of your life TC the more fascinating it gets. Have you considered publishing an autobiog? :-) MarkThomas 00:20, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is all a bit uncalled for, isn't it?  It's nasty enough round here as it is without this.  This article is about the debate regarding which is the second city not a name-calling, points-scoring, claim everything from miles around to make your favoured candidate stand out article. And that's aimed at more than one contributor on here! Fingerpuppet 00:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pigeons 

message: From here .
"Geographical terms like "Manchester", "Lancashire" or "Greater Manchester" are freely interchanged as if they all meant the same thing - much to the annoyance of the many residents of the 10 towns which now make up the Greater Metropolitan County of Manchester."
"It is little wonder that the peoples of Salford, Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside, Trafford, Bury, Bolton and Wigan fiercely defend their right to be called Stopfordians (natives of Stockport), Ashtonians (natives of Ashton), Mancunians (natives of Manchester), or Boltonians (etc), and it is right and proper that they should. Salford, for example, was an important township when Manchester was little more than a hamlet on Salford's outskirts - Salfordians grow visibly annoyed at being called Mancunians."
So much for the much vaunted claim that the people of SELNEC (Greater Manchester) all identify themselves with "Manchester" in a way that the people of the West Midlands don't with "Birmingham". The plain and obvious fact is that local rivalries and identities exist in both conurbations, as they do anywhere else.
From a geographical point of view, however, it must also be noted that the West Midlands conurbation, surrounded on all sides by open countryside, is a far more distinct unit than SELNEC, which is submerged within a massively larger quasi-conurbation (i.e. separated by only small patches of countryside) that includes Liverpool (itself larger than Manchester, be it noted), and all sorts of other places. TharkunColl 12:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Once again I point out that no-one is claiming that Manchester = Greater Manchester, either for the Metropolitan County or for the Urban Area.  I am not aware of anyone stating here that everyone within the SELNEC area believes that they are Mancunians, simply that the boundaries of Manchester spill out beyond the local government boundaries.  No-one is attempting to claim that the population of Manchester is larger than that of Birmingham. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fingerpuppet (talk • contribs) 16:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

text: You only have to listen to BBC Radio WM for a few days to realise that people within the West Midlands are pretty patriotic about their own areas such as Dudley, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, etc. However, this discussion does underline that the concept of Second City is about more than just population, it is also about subjective criteria. MarkThomas 19:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some interesting quotations

message: Cultural issues and comparisons obviously are important in the subjective evaluation of "Second City". If we can all agree to stop fighting over minutae, can I propose we extend the cultural factors section again, to include the following:
* Arts, music and literature - we should mention things such as venues, concert halls and orchestras, famous writers and artists, bands and writers.
* Key businesses and areas of financial and economic activity.
* Famous people.
* Historical importance, relative size and importance at different periods in history.
* National influence of local figures including politicians, business people and cultural leaders.
MarkThomas 19:23, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure that the majority of these would be helpful, and would probably encourage another bout of partisan edit warring (not necessarily amongst the same proponents as before).  Anyone interested in most of these things can head to the relevant city article, as they should all be covered there.  What would be helpful is an expansion of the fourth point - the history of the second city is something that is only touched on here, but we've got just over 300 years of history to cover. Matthew 20:12, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, maybe a table showing populations at different key dates such as 1750, 1801, 1831, etc? MarkThomas 22:33, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good - presumably we could get figures for each census year. Matthew 23:04, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I'd agree with that too.  Do we want to use the Local Authority figures, or the Urban sub-area figures (where available)? It might well get confusing with the changes in boundaries used in the 1891 census, for example.  I don't have the numbers to hand, but  the figures will shrink and grow according to the boundaries used at different times.  Notes on each change may well be helpful (or alternatively really confusing!) Fingerpuppet 09:41, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm.... I'd say that we're probably best going with whichever's the most consistent measure over time.  No idea which of these figures that would be, though! In terms of the cities to cover, I think Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester for definite should be covered as these all are or have been second city.  Possibly Dublin should be in there too, given that it is mentioned in sources as being the second city of the British Empire ... though had fallen back before it became part of the UK in 1801.  Matthew 12:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Would be happy to have a go at this and post a demo table to the talk page here, can someone help me with a simple technical query, where do I find templates for tables like this please? Thanks for any help. MarkThomas 16:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cultural factors 

message: It's funny how someone keeps trying to add something about the new supercasino - up to this point, no one had thought casinos worth mentioning (and I still don't). By the way, the current biggest casino in the UK is in Star City, Birmingham. Interestingly, Star City is the biggest Las Vegas-style leisure complex of its kind in the whole of Europe (and will continue to remain so, even if its casino will no longer be the biggest).
The same person mentioned political parties holding conferences in Manchester (another total irrelevance, in my opinion). The Tories have recently announced their plans for a number of conferences in Birmingham. TharkunColl 20:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is funny: but it looks like we're on top of keeping the article neutral and relevant. Do you understand now, though, why there were objections to your additions of arbitrary Birmingham-related facts in exactly the same manner? --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 21:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

text: As an interesting anecdote about political conferences, did you know that towns and cities wanting to host them have to submit some kind of tender, which then goes towards a shortlist to be selected from?  There was a bit of fuss in The Birmingham Post after the Labour one as to why Birmingham didn't bother to tender for it, which pretty much came down to the NEC Group making more money from private-sector conferences and the council not wanting to make up the money that the NEC Group would have forgone through holding a political conference instead. Matthew 21:56, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Casino

message: Dr Steve Thorne of the University of Birmingham's Department of English is one of many academics who have argued that Shakespeare spoke a Warwickshire dialect ancestral to Brummie (and which is indeed still spoken in the 15 miles or so between Birmingham and Stratford). Brummies don't need academics to tell them this, however, because it is obvious from reading Shakespeare's works that he was a local. Why are there so many lines that don't appear to rhyme? Simply because they do rhyme when spoken in a Brummie accent. Here is a very famous example from Macbeth, in which I have highlighted the words that only rhyme in Brummie:
Finger of birth-strangled babe/Ditch-delivered by a drab/Make the gruel thick and slab. TharkunColl 10:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the leading linguistic expert on Shakespearian England, David Crystal, Shakespeare probably spoke with an accent "somewhere between Australian, Cornish, Irish and Scottish, with a dash of Yorkshire - yet bizarrely, completely intelligible if you happen to come from North Carolina." BBC News - The real sound of Shakespeare?, 3 August 2005 MarkThomas 15:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yep, that's right - provide a link that doesn't actually lead anywhere, to make it seem as if your point was not entirely worthless. In any case, which is more likely? That Shakespeare spoke with all those diverse accents, or with the accent of his native area? The area of the Forest of Arden, Shakespeare's home and also that of Mary Arden, is nowadays almost entirely covered by Birmingham. Shocking, but true. TharkunColl 15:24, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Frankly, it's bollocks. Even the examples that are given, such as "voice" rhyming with "vice", is typical of Brummie. Maybe the Bull Ring isn't mentioned in Macbeth because that particular play is set in Scotland, hmmm? Just a thought. Likewise, I doubt very much that there was a Stratford Rd in Hamlet's Denmark. However... places in Birmingham are indeed mentioned by Shakespeare in his plays. Sutton Coldfield, for example, is mentioned in Henry IV Part I, Act 4, scene ii. FALSTAFF "Bardolph, get thee before to Coventry. Fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through. We'll to Sutton Coldfield tonight." TharkunColl 16:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Note: my above comment was deleted by User:Andyjsmith, for no reason that I can fathom. I have therefore restored it. TharkunColl 16:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Shakespeare was a Brummie

message: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MarkThomas (talk • contribs) 15:28, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: References

message: J.R.R. Tolkien, who, of course, was brought up in Birmingham, based his original conception of the Shire on his childhood home at Sarehole, Birmingham. This is not speculation - it was acknowledged by Tolkien himself in a 1966 interview (see Sarehole Mill). Furthermore, it is the only place in the world that Tolkien ever admitted as inspiration.
So, that's Tolkien for definite, and arguably Shakespeare as well for Birmingham. It would be quite difficult to think of two authors who have been more influential, certainly in the English language, anyway. Do the partisans of some other city, such as Manchester, really want to have a cultural influence section put back in this article? TharkunColl 10:26, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure this sort of thing is particularly constructive.... Matthew 13:00, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Birmingham is the inspiration for Middle-earth

message: There are four Assay Offices in the UK - London, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Edinburgh. TharkunColl 19:30, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Assay Office

message: At what point did the term "second city" of the UK become redefined to mean something other than second largest city? How is it possible to provide historical lists of the second city between specific dates if size was not the true criterion? In short, why does this article imply that size is somehow secondary? Where is the evidence? And by evidence, I don't mean claims. That Manchester has tried to claim the status indicates nothing other than the rather tacky nature of the Manchester PR department.
The unfortunate truth is that Manchester has a grotesquely inflated image of itself. Birmingham, on the other hand, has always been rather self-effacing - which is a pity of course, but when you really are the second city, you don't need to spend loads of council taxpayers money organising polls, and such like. All very sad... TharkunColl 00:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A question for the Manchester POV pushers

message: "20th Century Local Election Results
"A new series edited and produced by the LGC Elections Centre of Local Election results throughout the 20th century 
"Volume 4: Birmingham Votes 1911-2000 by Christopher Phillips. 
"This study of Birmingham’s local elections begins in 1911 with the ‘general election’ that followed the Greater Birmingham Act when the city’s boundaries took on most of their modern dimensions. These almost three thousand individual election results detail Birmingham’s political development. That figure includes more than 2,600 elections to the city of Birmingham council itself as well as by-elections and contests for seats on the West Midlands County Council (WMCC), in existence from 1973 to its abolition in the mid 1980s. These data for Britain’s second city provide a rich source of information about the ebb and flow of electoral opinion over a ninety-year period."
The University of Plymouth is an academic institution with no pro-Birmingham axe to grind, and is most definitely not attached to, commissioned or funded by Birmingham city council PR department. TharkunColl 09:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's just a book list on the Plymouth website - the "second city" phrase is used in the review notes of a book by a third party, nothing to do with Plymouth, and judging from the prose style is probably just a straight cut and paste job from the book's dustjacket review. MarkThomas 12:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: University of Plymouth

message: 34%, whilst admitedly greater than 29%, is hardly an overwhelming majority. Interestingly, Manchester also beat Birmingham into third city place - by an even bigger margin (27% to 21%). What does this show I wonder? TharkunColl 10:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As usual, you are entirely missing the point of this article TharkunColl. Could you confine your points to the actual context of the article please. This article is not entitled "Second most populous city of the UK". The points you make on the poll are therefore entirely pointless in the context of this article. Even that aside, your points are distortions of the facts. The poll shows only 6% subjectively not thinking that London is first - the remainder must be don't knows and in any poll there are always a number of don't knows. In fact, the poll is ringing confirmation of the point of this page, which is that the concept of "second city" is subjective and that a thumping majority from all over Britain (except in the West Midlands where the popular local myth of "second city-hood" for Birmingham persists) believe this to be Manchester. Therefore the point of this article is confirmed. I believe we should remove the fact tag from the top of the page immediately. Do any other editors apart from TC disagree? I further propose that the constant blocking manouevres of this one editor no longer be allowed to wreck an interesting article. MarkThomas 14:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I fully understand the point of this article - it was created, whether unintentionally or, more likely, intentionally, to give credence to Manchester's claim. As I've repeatedly stated, but POV-pushers such as yourself completely fail to engage with, the only reason why some people claim to believe that "second city" does not mean "second largest city" is because of Manchester's PR campaign. To be an honest discussion of the subject, the article should make this clear. Instead, it merely lists Manchester's claims. As for the poll that Manchester commissioned, how do you explain the fact that Manchester also beat Birmingham into third place - by an even bigger margin? TharkunColl 14:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is central Tharkun - you don't actually understand the point of the article at all from what you just said. The point of the article is not to "give credence" to any such claim. That would be POV. The point of the article is to explain the issue objectively and give illustrations as to why each set of "city supporters" believe what they do and what points of claim are brought forward in defence of each claim. I'm afraid you really are very, very confused about the purpose of the article. I have to say, having looked at your contributions across Wikipedia, I think this is something you often confuse - you think articles are to support a given POV, but they are not intended for that. There is no "Manchester conspiracy" amongst the editors here and equally you must stop assuming your role as an editor is to "fight for Birmingham" on this article. That is not what Wikipedia is for. The silly claims you make about the poll are irrelevant and, frankly, make you look foolish. How about taking a break from editing for, say, a few weeks to cool down? Try just reading Wikipedia for a while and not contributing to any page for 2 days. See if you can manage that? MarkThomas 14:49, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given your self-confessed bias, without contributions from people such as myself this article could have come straight from the Manchester PR department. It is you who are spreading POV by making it seem as if Manchester's claim is equally as valid as Birmingham's, and not just a product of its marketing department. And you still haven't answered my question about why Manchester beat Birmingham into third place in the poll you like so much. TharkunColl 14:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In the context of this article, it's entirely irrelevant. And also it didn't. Apart from that, a good point, well made. :-) Anyway, enough already - I know you will have the last word, but that doesn't mean anyone is interested in hearing from you again. MarkThomas 15:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Mori Poll

message: Thrasher, Michael "Magnifying Voters' Preferences: Bias in Elections to Birmingham's City Council"
Journal of Interdisciplinary History - Volume 35, Number 1, Summer 2004, pp. 69-103 
The MIT Press
"A special Act of Parliament and, in 1911, the Greater Birmingham Act incorporated some ... thus sealing Birmingham's status as England's second city."
Here is another academic publication describing Birmingham as the second city. For those unfamiliar with local history, the Greater Birmingham Act of 1911 trebled the size of the city, so it is to this year that its status as second city is dated. I'm guessing that the second city prior to 1911 was Glasgow - does anyone have any data? We could compile a historical list of the second cities of Britain going all the way back to Roman times, which would be a genuinely interesting and useful addition to the article. TharkunColl 10:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, as already discussed above - I think you may have been too busy with tiny point-scoring activities to notice. MarkThomas 12:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't you think that giving a list of previous second cities would be informative? Oh wait, sorry. Under your definition of second city, such a list would be impossible anyway, given its totally subjective nature. TharkunColl 14:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Previous second cities

message: From Talk:Birmingham, 20 September 2006:
"First off, I am certainly no weasel so there! Anyway, down to business. I did used to edit Manchester in similar terms but all the Brummies went over to that page and got rid of it. The problem I would guess is that the Mancunian:Brummie ratio on WP of people interested in editing UK-related pages is about 1:5 whereas the actual importance ratio between the two places (I would hardly glorify Birmingham by calling it a place - more of a coagulated heap of dereliction) - is about 473:11.2 - the result - chaos! Nothing makes sense on this Wikipedia thingy. Anyway, I digress. Second City. What is that exactly? Is it the second biggest by super-metrically time adjusted micro-analysed super dataanalytically assured totally confidently decided on by mega-confident statisticians of supernaturally gifted pan-paranormal weightistically giftamundod megabrainy guys in shiny government towers! Nope. It's what you think. And what most of us think is, well, (and I include all the Brummies because they secretly think it, they're longing to think it, they wish Michael Stipe or Razorlight or ELO would come and tell them) - we think that it's Manchester. That's what the surveys say. That's what the government thinks. That's what foreigners think. That's what the motorway planners (who've bypassed Birmingham with their super M6 Toll Road think and that's what generations of superbly gifted but under-financed railway engineers think. And that, fellow Wikipedians, is what you really think too, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Thank you. MarkThomas 21:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, thanks, I thought it was pretty funny. You're entitled to disagree. MarkThomas 14:52, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually think its very funny - but probably not for the reasons you intended. TharkunColl 15:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Yes, thanks, I thought it was pretty funny. You're entitled to disagree." - How utterly pathetic. Nick Boulevard 12:45, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I won't rise. I was satirising the Birmingham-is-second obsessives. My own POV is that is is unclear which is biggest - the difference between the conurbations of Greater-Manchester and Greater-Birmingham is hard to define and even on the "official" NS figures which are dubious as they draw a strange definition of what constitutes the conurbations, the "gap" is so small that must lie within the statistical error ranges. So unlike some, I actually believe there does exist a valid debate about this, as opposed to just taking a pro-this city or pro-that city line. MarkThomas 12:49, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[User:MarkThomas]]'s bias revealed in all its glory

message: At the moment, editor TharkunColl is listing Glasgow as third-largest city in the UK on United Kingdom, which is obviously wrong. He states on Talk:Second city of the United Kingdom that he is drawing figures from List of English cities by population although this page warns at the top that they disregard conurbation populations - in other words, he is basing his edit on local authority populations. These are widely disputed as being an objective guide to the size of British cities, whose built-up areas frequently exceed (significantly) local authority boundaries. Therefore can other editors take a look at this please and make adjustments? I proposed what I hoped was a more objective summary and was (against WP:CIVIL) accused by TharkinColl of "wrecking the page", which I don't think is fair - I was trying to make it objective and Wikipedian. Please review, thanks. MarkThomas 13:32, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: List of English cities by population specifically does not use local authority boundaries. Please read what it says. TharkunColl 13:35, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I will agree.  List of English cities by population uses urban sub-area populations rather than local authorites which are contained in List of English districts by population.  Urban sub-areas aren't perfect by any means, but are better than local authority districts that presume towns such as Huddersfield and West Bromwich don't exist, and that places such as Tameside and Sandwell are equivalent to towns.Fingerpuppet 18:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Britain's second and third largest city?

message: This, at any rate, is according to the Roper Poll  conducted in 1991. Should we at Wikipedia report this as a fact - or even a serious debatable point - just because a poll says so? TharkunColl 19:34, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, maybe. :-) Which page in that report was the 3.7m figure on TC? I could only find something saying that 1.4% believed in criteria that some other group says constitute 4 out of 5 markers for possible abduction. Still, in the context of this article, I can only hope that more Brummies than Mancs have been abducted since the last census. MarkThomas 20:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The figure is quoted in the article Abduction phenomenon. TharkunColl 20:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Cross-quoting - the Wikipedia article you quote is in turn quoting an external poll which you said earlier was the original source. Yet in that actual source it does not make the claim that the Wikipedia page says it does. All very entertaining knockabout stuff! I think someone should correct the WP article, well spotted, it's a bogus interpretation. MarkThomas 21:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

text: No, of course we shouldn't report is as fact -- because there's no reliable evidence from reputable sources of it having happened. We should report, however, that 3.7 million Americans believe they have been abducted by aliens (i.e. without editorialising): which is exactly what our article at Abduction phenomenon does. Similarly, our article here should state that a non-trivial amount of people in the United Kingdom identify Manchester as the UK's second city: because that's what sources indicate. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 00:04, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So, to pursue the analogy, we can certainly report that a non-trivial amount of people in the UK believe Manchester to be the second city, even though it's actually less than half the size of Birmingham. TharkunColl 00:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. This is exactly what our article currently states. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 00:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: 3.7 million Americans have been abducted by aliens

message: I happened to watch the BBC2 programme Comedy Map of Britain earlier , which turned out to be about Wales and Birmingham. In it, Alan Whicker, the presenter, described Birmingham as Britain's "second city". I hope we can all agree that this is absolutely, unequivocally, and unquestionably definitive. TharkunColl 23:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, you are clearly trolling now and I am becoming more than a little fed up of you wasting the time of those of us who are here to write a good encyclopaedia. I am of course prepared to accept your argument that Alan Whicker's position is 'absolutely, unequivocally, and unquestionably definitive': but only if you are prepared to accept that my next-door-neighbour Mr Osborne's position that Manchester is the second city is also 'absolutely, unequivocally, and unquestionably definitive', since there's just as much reason to take his word on the matter as Mr Whicker's. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 00:07, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I happen to know that Mr Osbourne would never say such a thing. TharkunColl 00:12, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, well, I could easily find someone to say that they thought that Ely was the second city, and again there would be just as much reason to take their word as anyone else's.  However, that would result in a trivial number of people in total.  Now, if I could persuade lots of people to say that as an unprompted response to a question, then it's worthy of mention here, no matter how I was to achieve it. Fingerpuppet 09:09, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Ely is certainly important. However, from personal headcount research in Spain amongst the expat Brits, I have reason to believe that Murcia is the second city of Britain. :-) MarkThomas 10:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that a typo for Mercia? In which case I wholly agree with you. TharkunColl 10:29, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Alan Whicker: unimpeachable authority

message: The Eurostat data for urban area populations is based on ONS data, so the recent rv to my edit by the usual suspect, TharkunColl, is both innapropriate, wrong and POV. I ask other editors to review and correct his auto-revert policy to anything he happens not to like. Thanks. MarkThomas 18:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted your edit because it assumes that an urban area is equal to a city.  It's not - this would need to be explained if the figures are to be used, and the figures would also need to be stated with the source cited. Like User:Fingerpuppet I'm not convinced that urban areas or conurbation size mean a great deal unless there's a conurbation-wide government or some other link in place too, such as the Greater London Authority.  Matthew 18:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: If it is based on ONS data, then how come it contradicts it? The ONS data is official for the UK, that Euro-thing is simply an attempt to gather data for the whole of Europe from wildly different sources of infinately variable reliability, then harmonise it using some arcane fudging. Which is more likely to be trustworthy? TharkunColl 18:18, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: It, and the ONS data, are definitions of an urban areas, nothing more.  Manchester (the city) in no way has 2.2m inhabitants, nor does Birmingham (the city) in any way have 2.3m inhabitants, let alone the even larger figures from whatever it is Eurostat's doing with the ONS's figures. Matthew 18:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: And we already have them in the ONS figures, which are both official, are obviously more reliable. As for Birmingham coinciding with its boundaries, or whatever you were talking about, this is once again the "unfair boundaries" argument that Manchester supporters always come out with when all else fails. It is pure, unadulterated POV. If you are going to claim that, then it is obvious that the whole of Solihull should be in Birmingham. And Smethwick. And lots of other places. And indeed the whole built up area, i.e. the conurbation. TharkunColl 18:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The boundaries are inaccurate and Manchester does come out disproportionately small.  But under the conurbation figures or urban-area figures, both cities come out grossly oversized. Matthew 18:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: But are multiple sets of misleading figures really better than one set of misleading figures? I think everyone's agreed that the city of Manchester is bigger than the 439k people ascribed to the City of Manchester, whereas Birmingham's 1m is about right, so even this wrong set of data is at least approximately half right. Over 2m for the populations of either of these cities is just silly. Matthew 18:40, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How can it be said that Manchester is "bigger" than its city (if we're not talking conurbations)? Where does the line between Manchester and Salford really lie, if not on the city boundary? How can such a thing possibly be quantified without gross POV? TharkunColl 18:45, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure - perhaps by reference to boundaries before they were redrawn in the 1970s? Tough question, really! Matthew 18:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: What problem? The "problem" that Manchester never seems to come out in second place? TharkunColl 18:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Something that I think definitely needs to go in, if conurbations are to be included, is an explanation of why two measures of in theory the same conurbations come out with different figures. It's unintuitive otherwise. Matthew 18:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Either we don't use conurbations at all (this article, after all is entitled "second city", not "second conurbation"), or we use the official ONS figures. I wouldn't trust those Euro figures as far as I could throw them. TharkunColl 19:01, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: It's irrelevant if TharkunColl "trusts" figures or not - what matters is their objectivity. MarkThomas 21:05, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about Salford? Is that "part of" Manchester? TharkunColl 22:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, that's precisely what the new "LUZ" concept is for Fingerpuppet - it is a scientific, determined attempt to have a new definition of urban areas that aims to meet people's common view that a "city" is not just whatever local authority boundaries it happens to have, but it's continuously built-up area - and that the shorthand for "conurbation" names which we often use technically - "West Midlands", "Greater Manchester" - is most commonly known to the layperson by their city names. Most people saying "Manchester" or "Leeds" do not of course just mean "the precise number of people living within the local authority area officially bearing that name". They mean "the urbanity of Leeds". They mean the urban region. That's what the LUZ does. It really is a very significant development because it meets common perceptions in a scientific way. See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography where it looks like editors are interested in using the Eurostat data across all UK cities. MarkThomas 21:31, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So can you explain why those figures differ from the ONS ones, to be found on the official government report ? Why is LUZ to be trusted over the ONS? TharkunColl 22:22, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, there seems to be an editor who agrees that the city-level figures (and not LUZ figures) would be permissible. And I'm unclear on why, in an article of UK focus, European figures are to be preferred over the official UK figures. Going back to what User:Fingerpuppet said, the conurbation is not equivalant to a city; rather, a conurbation is a collection of cities and towns. I've certainly never come across anyone who has used Leeds to refer to Bradford, Manchester to refer to Bolton, or Birmingham to refer to Wolverhampton. This doesn't mean that the conurbations are irrelevant in this, but it's certainly false to equate the conurbations with the cities. NB, Fingerpuppet, the people who I know that live in Sutton think of it like Edgbaston - a posh bit of Birmingham - but I can see why it might be considered a separate place. Matthew 22:23, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since this article is entitled "second city", then use of the city figures is surely the proper thing to to. It is only the Manchester supporters who seem determined to block this at every turn, for the pretty obvious reason that Manchester is actually quite small. Maybe, had not places like Salford been in the way, Manchester would have expanded more than it did - but we are not dealing in what ifs here, just the facts as they are. If they want to claim Salford as part of the informal city then a similarly solid case could be made for including Solihull with Birmingham. But, as I've pointed out before, even if Manchester annexed the metropolitan boroughs of both Salford and Trafford, it would still be smaller than what Birmingham is now. TharkunColl 22:35, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not exactly convinced by this LUZ business at all.  It looks remarkably like conurbations to me, rather than cities themselves.  How is this data to be used across all UK cities when most of them aren't represented in the LUZ data list?  How can you use the Eurostat data mentioned for the population of, say, Bradford or Sunderland? As for Sutton Coldfield, I mention it as it was only put into the Birmingham local authority area in 1974 as it could not achieve the MBC target population of 250,000, and is considered a separate Urban Sub-area by the ONS.  Of course, as I know precisely one person who lives in Sutton Coldfield I'm not working from the largest of datasets! Fingerpuppet 22:44, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I know Sutton quite well, and it has the atmosphere of an affluent, outer suburb. And it's by no means the most recent area to be added to Birmingham - in 1995 the city gained Frankley . Birmingham is actually still expanding. TharkunColl 22:52, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

text: We seem to be back to a tedious punch-up between your dedication to rectifying some perceived slight to Birmingham and your concept of Manchester supporters which exists only in your head. Has it ever dawned on you that Wikipedia is not for point scoring on your POV? Er, no apparently. You seem to be winning in your game of making other editors give up, I'll give you that. MarkThomas 22:55, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eurostat data 

message: I see there has been a lot of discussion/argument over how to define what is the second city. However, surely the name says it all? The 'second city' must be a city, & anything used to define it must relate to what is in the city. Therefore any comparisons between Birmingham & Manchester should be based on 'City of Birmingham' & 'City of Manchester'.
There is some interesting information on City status in the United Kingdom, where in 1911 population seems to have been the most important consideration.
The City of Birmingham has a population of 1,001,200 (2005 estimate), The metropolitan borough of Manchester, which has city status, has a population of 441,200
During the Victorian era, the population of Birmingham grew rapidly to well over half a million[9] and Birmingham became the second largest population centre in England and the third in Britain after Glasgow and then London.
--r-c-h-w 08:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  second city?