@johnpoz But like I said, the route is odd as visually it looks like both routes "should" have been the same, because its bouncing around different routers to get to the same ones used in the quicker trace.
Granted, its likely this would not always be the case as Geo could "theoretically" make a difference, but its unlikely due to how UK ISPs almost always only hit the Internet in London, regardless of where you are geographically located. They just don't bother with the cost of taking the quickest route from your location to their network and all the major peering and CDNs are in London anyway.
I have a reasonable amount of experience looking into this as my old ISP was in my city and DID have their PoP within the city, using their own network. But even ISPs that did that before have fallen back onto leasing the telco virtual backhaul which again, aggregates everyone in London. Its a bit of a drag as I had a single-digit route to the Internet, but it is what it is.
