inspired by @justonekoala behold my rankings of the 48 ceremonial counties of england. this could take some time so bear with me

48. rutland
the smallest county and not in a fun, cute way, in a 'why do you even exist' way. did not have a single mcdonalds in the entire county until this year. only has two towns, let alone a city. rutland water seems to be its only interesting location

47. city of london
name is false advertisement because crucially it is not the actual city of london but today is just the financial district. a fraud in every sense, not least because it's where all the bankers work. flag is uninspiring. why does it need its own airport

46. isle of wight
sorry for putting all the tiny counties at the beginning but most of them deserve it. its mere existence is funny. people from here call themselves 'caulkheads'. not much else to say tbh. its saving point is its festival

45. bedfordshire
the first of the shires on this list. just not an interesting place by any measure. neither bedford nor luton are particularly pretty or exciting. the best local food they have to show for themselves is the bedfordshire clanger which says a lot.

44. west sussex
who? for a long time i didn't even know there were two sussexes. inferior to its eastern neighbour. basically all of its listed 'interesting places' on wikipedia are stately homes. i went to west wittering once and it thundered the whole time

43. shropshire
'how can you put shropshire at 43 it's got a UNESCO world heritage site!' yes it's got... ironbridge gorge, which looks nice in aerial photos but once you've seen it irl once it's just okay and otherwise cannot make up for there being very few things to do here

42. dorset
it has some nice views and beaches but alas so does every other county in the southwest and dorset is unfortunately the least interesting of them all. also surely the most tory of all the southwestern counties. its flag bothers me for some reason

41. east riding of yorkshire
the picture i've chosen here makes hull look quite cute actually but it's not really. the worst yorkshire county, there's not a lot to do here and it's mainly full of old people. has a coast but there's a reason people never go here to go to the beach

40. leicestershire
the only county without a flag! the people of leicestershire couldn't even be bothered to design a flag for their own county! anyway leicester to me is the archetypal generic english city. fine but there is very little inspiring about it apart from football

39. durham
once a proud county with a strong tradition of trade unionism, has sadly recently started to elect conservatives. durham the city has too many hills to be an enjoyable experience. suspiciously big in comparison to tyne & wear. does it really need all that land?

38. herefordshire
there is nothing here really so i couldn't justifiably place this any higher, but i really respect their dedication to hereford cows, to the point of putting one on their flag. very cute. an unpretentious county that's boring and knows that it's boring.

NB: i would like to issue an apology for the mistake in my durham tweet, the black flag is the flag of the city of durham. the county of durham's flag is below. please once again accept my heartfelt apologies.

37. lincolnshire
apparently some people from lincolnshire are under the mistaken impression that they're northerners? i would like to make it clear that they are not. probably some of the worst accents in the country i am sorry to say. lincoln is a generic cathedral city

36. suffolk
this was the most interesting picture of ipswich that i can find, which says a lot. gets a few extra points, like herefordshire, for having its own brand of sheep instead of cows. has NORFOLK as its neighbour and still manages to be worse. very impressive

35. norfolk
marginally better than suffolk because norwich is better than ipswich and it is the home of alan partridge, although steve coogan is not from norfolk. apparently pretends to have a national park even though it officially doesn't? badly designed flag

34. wiltshire
wiltshire has been propelled to such a high ranking on the basis of stonehenge and salisbury cathedral, but its time has finally come. always makes me think of g/les and m/ry from g/gglebox. very tory. possibly still contaminated with novichok

33. lancashire
its most iconic moment was 500 years ago when henry tudor triumphed at boswell field and the house of lancaster won the wars of the roses. never reached those heights since. has some pretty spots but is mostly a bit grim tbh. under pre-1974 boundaries i'd live here

32. surrey
"posh people: the county". i am very sorry to the working classes of surrey for generalizing them together with their posh neighbours but it is true that surrey is basically mainly just posh london commuter belt. places like guildford are slightly charmingly shit

31. worcestershire
fair play to them, they have produced one of the most iconic sauces in the world, but the only other thing of note worcestershire has produced is my irl friend. lost half their towns to the west midlands cos they're losers. why does their flag have pears on it

30. cheshire
the most tory part of the north, is only this high because i think that chester is lovely. spoilt by the fact that there are so many people living there who you could describe as 'all money, no class' e.g. footballers and their wives. its smaller towns are all boring

29. northamptonshire
surely one of the counties that provokes the most neutral reactions from people whenever it's mentioned, i like that they have a county flower. but i feel sorry for them. poor northampton has been historically fucked over a lot. they're the underdog county

28. berkshire
EXCELLENT flag - congratulations to berkshire. but it's in a very odd horizontal shape (why?). reading is okay but it feels like everyone is from there. i'm also jealous of its train station - not sure it deserves to be that big. most irrelevant home county probs?

27. derbyshire
curiously a case of a county being let down by its county town rather than lifted up. i find derby a bit boring, but the villages and hills of derbyshire very cute... also i know i dissed stately homes earlier but chatsworth house is on another level. those GARDENS

26. warwickshire
first of all: another really good flag. but most importantly: the home of shakespeare, stratford-upon-avon, the RSC! sadly straford alone cannot carry warwickshire to a higher position in the rankings, because it's otherwise pretty devoid of interest

25. tyne and wear
this is purely petty. tyne and wear dont deserve to be in the top half bc im tired of geordies pretending the north starts at durham bc they can't handle that newcastle is only the 5th best city in the north. ppl from cumbria and northumberland dont do this

ok we're on to the top 24 congratulations to everybody who is still in

24. kent
like surrey but prettier and more charming, i can see the appeal of kent. i would like to go on a short holiday to a country house in kent. still ultimately a little too rural and posh for my tastes

23. buckinghamshire
really has no business being this high, but milton keynes as a concept makes me laugh and i have a soft spot for it. they have literal robots in the streets. buckingham was nice too when i drove through it but let's be honest MK is the star of the show

22. staffordshire
their flag has the iconic pretzel symbol on it, which you also see on the bridge as you drive into stoke on trent, which i do every time i go south. please google dick and dom stoke on trent song. also home to alton towers iconic location of my youth. thats it

21. hertfordshire
i think herts is the ultimate distillation of what 'home county' means. not as posh as surrey or as bizarre as buckinghamshire, just vibing. there's something about st albans that i find strangely endearing, i can't explain it