Yorkshire
I have just finished reading a 450 page tome about the place where I am from - Yorkshire. Written by Yorkshire exile and journalist, Rick Broadbent, the title of his work is "Now Then", followed by this strapline: "The story of Yorkshire and its people". In Yorkshire it is very common to say to people we meet, "Now then". Sometimes that is short for "Now then, how are you going on?" I have used that greeting all my life but I recognise that in other English-speaking regions of the world and indeed this country, "Now then" will be unfamiliar. Rick Broadbent was not trying to produce a definitive historical and geographical guide to Yorkshire, he was writing about the county from his point of view - in the full knowledge that it would be biased in several ways and omissions would be glaring. It is rarely acknowledged that the population of Yorkshire is higher than Wales and Northern Ireland put together. It is also slightly bigger than...