Devon vs Somerset

Somerset has Glastonbury, Devon has no such thing. Devon is therefore better.

Devon knows how they make it so creamy. Somerset knows nothing of creaminess.

www.devon.com is an information technology consultancy.

www.somerset.com is exclusive homes for businessmen in the asia pacific area, close to major entertainment belts.

Both are among the dullest websites I've ever seen but www.somerset.com has a statement of 'vision and core values' so Devon nudges it.

Exeter seemed a nice enough place on the one occasion I visited, but I really don't know enough to judge. As far as Somerset goes I like Yeovil a lot, I like Bath, and I quite like Crewkerne, but I loathe Taunton for the same reason I despise Dorchester (snobby, care more about tourists and a dead-on-its-arse notion of "civic identity" than it does about the people who actually live there: the one interesting thing in Taunton town centre, when I last visited in 1996, was the "Taunton station" sign in a *fantastic* c.1969 font that First Great Western might well have obliterated by now). The Tory revival there at the election tells you all you need to know.

Who's more unpleasant: Angela Browning or David Heathcoat-Amory? Who's achieved the most: Emma Nicholson or Paddy Ashdown?

Wiltshire = Well yes there is Avebury and Stonehenge and Chalk horses but Avebury was a re-construction site built by a 1930s Marmalade Millionaire (Alexander Keiller) and Stonehenge was also 're-modelled' to look just like the Heritage industry wanted it to look (including the depressing concrete visitor 'facilities' and barbed wire. Most of Wiltshire is an MOD play-pen. And who can ignore Swindon!

If anyone can then please let me know how, etc etc.

Actually it has come to my attention that Swindon may now have a better indie record shop than Oxford, not that I've visited it yet myself. Oh, Oxford's scenesters will not be happy if this is true, heh heh heh...

On the basis of my limited exprience of both, I say Devon.

Graham: I meant that Taunton seemed to be definitively aimed at the Heritage Britain market in a way that, say, Yeovil (where one axis of my family lives: funny that I didn't mention that upthread) doesn't. Don't know why it seemed that way, it doesn't have much to attract tourists, and I only went there once, but it just seemed to have had all life sucked from it, and to still be struggling with the fact that it wasn't 1959. Might have seemed different if I'd gone more often and, of course, nothing comes close to the horror of Dorchester.

Edward du Cann was a nice man if you like High Tory patricians, and was one of the few people to come out of the Jeffrey Archer Panorama special this year with any credit: how *can* it have got down to that far-right cunt Adrian Flook?

right on the border between these counties

just had a hearty breakfast. a collie sits outside this glass door. i've got the cricket world cup semi final on. there are peregrine falcons

great area for fossils, and I don't just mean the people that retire there lol

Christ almighty, the West Deane Way

we're going to do a reduced version of this later, and we shall banish a legendary black dog (a real legendary one, not depression) as well

yesterday we found the prettiest little old church, deserted, but with a working harmonium, maybe the best musical discovery of 2015 so far