More Useful Stuff

More Useful Stuff


Herefordshire
Is an English County in the West Midlands. It is part of the borderland that once sheltered the rest of the English from the rapacious and warlike Welsh - or possibly it was the other way round? No matter it as rural a County as it's possible to get in England without running into a Northerner or a distressed celt.
Some statistics...
Population: 183,000 and change...
Population Density: 84 people per km2 (3rd lowest in England)
Ethnicity: 97.1% White, 1.2% Asian, 0.8% Mixed, 0.4% Black, 0.3% Other and 0.2% Fae(1)

Herefordshire is famous for potholes, top quality beef, cider, being the inspiration to Edward Elgar(2) and, in a spurious attempt to link the place back to Rivers of London/Midnight Riot, the birthplace of actor David Garrick.

(1) Or possibly Aliens...
(2) Amongst other things he wrote Pomp and Circumstances which is known the UK as Land of Hope And Glory and thus causes British people to burst out laughing at American High School graduations(3)
(3) Some British people anyway.

The Glorious Twelfth
The 12th of August when grouse come into season and thousands of people tramp around the countryside banging away with shotguns. Unlike foxhunting you're supposed to eat what you kill and it's supposed to be enormous fun - although not, presumably, for the grouse.
Vernacular
vəˈnakjʊlə/

noun: the vernacular

1. the language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people of a country or region. "he wrote in the vernacular to reach a larger audience"
synonyms: everyday language, spoken language, colloquial speech, native speech, conversational language, common parlance, non-standard language, jargon, -speak, cant, slang, idiom, argot, patois, dialect; regional language, local tongue, regionalism, localism, provincialism;
informallingo, local lingo, patter, geekspeak; rareidiolect
 "he wrote in the vernacular and adopted a non-academic style accessible to the public"

2. architecture concerned with domestic and functional rather than public or monumental buildings.
"buildings in which Gothic merged into farmhouse vernacular"

 3. what Ben Aaronovitch writes the Rivers of London books in...