Has John O' Groats moved?

random man

I have two photos of myself taken at Lands End. The first is in 1961, the second was two weeks ago.
In 1961 John O Groats was 1000 miles away, two weeks ago it was 874 miles away.

My guess is that 50 years ago they were only guessing the distance. What other explanation could there be for this 126 mile encroachment, bearing in mind that the Isles of Scilly are 28 miles away in both pictures?

White Line

Global Warming! It gets hotter then the water from the soil evaporates. As a result the land shrinks. D'uh.

STOP GLOBAL WARMING! STOP GLOBAL WARMING! :twisted:

unixnerd

Well the distance by road from Inverness to the far north has come down a good bit. The Kessock Bridge, Tain Bridge and the causeway north of the Black Isle must have knocked at least 40-50 miles off the route. In 1961 even the Forth road bridge wasn't open.

cycologist

I think that quite a few cyclists doing LeJog deliberately ensure that as well as riding between the two points, they also cover 1,000 in the single trip .( I know I did.)
Bring back the 1961 sign !

spinndrift

I blame all those wind farms - they're squeezing the UK together.

rolf_f

spinndrift wrote:

I blame all those wind farms - they're squeezing the UK together.

Naaah, the OPs original ride was pre EU. Now we have metric miles which are obviously a bit longer.

CiB

So in 1961, how would the distance be measured? What route would be considered the 'expected' route pre m/way & major trunk road + dual c/way? And how many people would have known how far it was anyway? A quick Google in 1961? Errr.

874 +/- some for differing routes, +/- some more for satellite mapping being more accurate than a Ford Anglia being driven there by someone who 'knew the way', +/- a few more for new and better roads happening, +/- a few more for rounding to a decent sized big number and there's your gap.

I grew up seeing a picture of my sister standing next to the sign at LE pointing to our village with 308 miles showing to home. I was gutted when I went myself (aged about 36¾) to find that they'd changed the sign and it no longer mentioned God's own village, but some other pokey town in Lancashire instead.

Lands End is crap - they don't know how far it is the JoG, and they've decided my village no longer exists.

GiantMike

John O'Groats is continually moving through time and space. Its actual movement depends on your observation point (and attitude towards the various theories regarding time/space). Basically, if you don't think JOG has moved then you are ideally placed to join the 12th Century Church.*

*As Brian Cox would be likely to say (the tw@t).

Kendal Black Drop

random man wrote:

I have two photos of myself taken at Lands End.

Post them or it didn't happen.

GiantMike

Kendal Black Drop wrote:

random man wrote:

I have two photos of girls in lycra shorts taken at Lands End.

Post them or it didn't happen.

FTFY

Frank the tank

Kendal Black Drop wrote:

random man wrote:

I have two photos of myself taken at Lands End.

Post them or it didn't happen.

I have seen the said photos.

My theory is the person doing the 1961 measurement probably got a scraggy old road atlas and a bit of wool; then tracked it along the various pages of the map following their idea of the shortest route. When this had been done they just measured the length of wool and using the scale converted it to miles.

Not very accurate but that would account for the inaccuracy.

Another eerie thing is in 1961 lands end was black and white whereas a fortnight ago it was the same colours as the rest of the world. Strange, but true. I have seen the evidence.

random man

Thanks for the confirmation Frank - at my age, trying to post non-digital photos sounds a bit technical

According to AA Route Planner the shortest route from LE to JOG is 837.9 miles. Avoiding motorways it is 916.5 miles, but 1000 looks better

Frank the tank

random man wrote:

Thanks for the confirmation Frank - at my age, trying to post non-digital photos sounds a bit technical

According to AA Route Planner the shortest route from LE to JOG is 837.9 miles. Avoiding motorways it is 916.5 miles, but 1000 looks better

Oh yes! Happy birthday for tomorra mate, and no I'm not buying you a drink, you had enough on Sat'day.

random man

Cheers fella

Mike Healey

He hasn't moved for a very l..o..o..o..n..g time