Naming the States, I seem to have ended up with too many. Where have I gone wrong?

[Tansu]

*Originally posted by Lobsang *
**It still amazes me when I mention that I grew up in Accrington. People always recognise it, and nearly always their first reaction is to say, with a scouse accent - “Accrington Stanley? Who’r they?!”. Because I grew up thinking it was one of the obscure little dull unfamous towns in the North of England. **

You know why they say that, don’t you?
There was a TV advertisement for milk in the early 1980s that featured two wee scouse lads.
Lad 1: Ian Rush says that if you don’t drink your milk you’ll end up playing for Accrington Stanley.
Lad 2: Accrington Stanley? Who are they?
Lad 1: Exactly.
And that ad went deep deep DEEEEEEP into the ol’ English collective memory, and will probably never be budged by anything short of nuclear holocaust.
Everton - I think you’re slightly wrong about Scottish counties. There isn’t a county called The Highlands, for one. The region is Highland, as you correctly state. In fact, post 1995, it’s now a unitary authority.
Until 1995, the districts of Highland Region were Caithness, Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty, Inverness, Nairn, Skye & Lochaber, and Badenoch & Strathspey.

Counties in Scotland haven’t existed since 1974. Hiowever, there are areas retained for ceremonial (and land registry IIRC) purposes that cunningly have very similar boundaries to the old counties.

[everton]

Thanks for the info, Tansu, I’ll admit that I still get confused about the Scottish ones. And contrary to what you may have heard, I had nothing to do with the milk advert.

[Tansu]

The more I actually looked into the Scottish local government and ceremonial system, the more confusing it got, to be honest.