Why British cities make no sense

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Simple solution: Move Reading to Wales.

Wow - the budget on this episode... being able to buy three large packs of Cathedral City cheese is quite a feat

To add to the confusion: most British people who live in cities refer to the city centre as 'town'

3:10 the long version:

"Letters patent" is a fancy way of saying "a document that is officially issued by the Monarch." Like much UK law, what this technically means, and how this practically works in the real world, are different things. Technically, the Monarch can choose any town or village or motorway service he likes, and bestow city status upon it. But practically, it's the government of the day who makes the decision, and then the ceremonial stage is the bit where the Monarch signs a big piece of paper. Another important thing to note is that even in the olden days, when the Monarch had genuine power, he wasn't actually turning places that were not cities into cities. He was merely making their already established city status into official, monarchy-endorsed city status. If you've got time to pause this video and read this essay, you've got time to reply to that email.

The absolute dedication it must take to visit both st David's and st albarns for one video is incredible. They're even in different countries...

I greatly appreciate whoever put "make clothes sizes consistent" on the list of more important things to do cause it truly should be the top prority

The level of effort put into each episode is a joy to behold, all the animations, cut away, jokes, in-jokes, many of them painstaking done for a mere few seconds of use - an utter treat! Thanks Jay and Mark. (ps. Getting Roger Tilling involved is next level)

I went to university in Reading and one of the urban legends we were told was that when Queen Victoria first visited Reading, she reportedly didn’t like it. Some say that the statue of her in Reading town centre is also deliberately facing away from the centre of Reading.

Of course like most urban legends, no one has been able to verify this

As someone from Reading, I dont want to become a City. Being the largest town in the UK is at least an interesting fact to tell people, if we get city status then we wont have any interesting facts to tell people

Great episode as always, chaps

It takes absolute ages to watch a Map Men episode as I have to pause and read all the delightful little quirks thrown in at every possible opportunity. Lovely episode as always, lads.

the fact that they made a two page bogus dictionary at 2:44 for like 3 frames of screentime is the type of unnecessary high effort that I want to see from this channel. keep it up!

Now I'm hoping to see a spinoff entitled "It's Something to Do with Cheese" where Jay and Mark attempt to build a city made entirely out of cathedrals made of cheese.

I'm surprised you didn't give Welwyn Garden City a shout. Considering it has "City" in it's title and is still considered a Town.

I can't get over how they stop in the middle of the video to congratulate each other for being brilliant.
So wholesome and factually correct.

So basically Reading was left on Read

Absolutely love the detail on the list by 3000, everywhere around Reading has been made a city, but they still refuse to let Reading have anything

Interestingly, Ely cathedral actually has an octagonal tower rather than the usual square. The original square crossing tower collapsed in 1322, so they replaced it with an octagonal one. Your little bit of trivia from an Ely resident.

YES! NEW MAPMEN!!!!!!! MY LIFE HAS MEANING AGAIN

I live in reading, the most notable feature recently about it is that we managed to have both of our football teams (men and women) relegated in the same season, also there's a very boring plaque that says something along the lines of: King Henry is buried here somewhere-ish (we think)