So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

Lean'n'mean said:

Technically, Scotland & Wales are nations rather than countries, (along with Northern Ireland) ,only the Republic of Ireland could truly be called a country.

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Ain't it that "nation" is about people and "country" is about land? And of course there are overlaps.

You know, partisans of the Boston entry in the American League often identify as members of the Red Sox Nation, no matter where on the map they might be found, and residents of Central Washington State live in Apple Country.

If I heard the phrase "Red Sox Country," greater Boston and maybe all of New England would come to mind. And "Apple Nation" would have me thinking of the collection of humans whose livelihoods depend on the pome.

Edward said:

Wales, Scotland and England all have separate national anthems for sporting occasions; it's the nature of having a state (the UK) which is comprised of several countries, rather than just one. As a rule, only English people ever refer to the UK as "the country" (and then often interchangeably with 'the country' meaning just England).

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Yeah, I think I understand the whole UK thing...mostly a rhetorical, somewhat tongue in cheek, question. I work with enough folks from "the Kingdom" to get it...almost everyone from Scotland or Wales will refer to "back home" as "Scotland" or "Wales", while almost everyone from England will refer to "the UK".

I do find it amusing that for sporting events in which the various UK countries fare well, say the World Cup, for example, England, Scotland, Wales, all field individual teams. But in the Olympics, for example, where the talent pool is different, it's "Team Great Britain" and everyone waves the same flag.

HudsonHawk said:

I do find it amusing that for sporting events in which the various UK countries fare well, say the World Cup, for example, England, Scotland, Wales, all field individual teams. But in the Olympics, for example, where the talent pool is different, it's "Team Great Britain" and everyone waves the same flag.

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You only find it amusing? I find it totally baffling, and I live here!

Fifty years before we on this side of the Atlantic broke with you on yours, Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels. We read this book in a literature class. One of my classmates (maybe the smartest kid in school, now chief of emergency medicine in a town near our school) pointed out this gem from Chapter 1. Gulliver is a physician who apprenticed to a London surgeon, James Bates.

Lean'n'mean said:

Technically, Scotland & Wales are nations rather than countries, (along with Northern Ireland) ,only the Republic of Ireland could truly be called a country.

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I hold with TonyB on that one, below.

As to Ireland, well. The status of Ireland as a whole and especially the six county statelet in the North remains a contested matter over which all too much blood has been spilled in the last several centuries.

HudsonHawk said:

Yeah, I think I understand the whole UK thing...mostly a rhetorical, somewhat tongue in cheek, question. I work with enough folks from "the Kingdom" to get it...almost everyone from Scotland or Wales will refer to "back home" as "Scotland" or "Wales", while almost everyone from England will refer to "the UK".

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In part I think there's a much stronger sense of identity politics in the Celtic countries (at least that was the case pre-Brexit vote; I've encountered elements in English politics in the last couple of years I thought long dead to the mainstream, but that's another matter for another place). English folks often just seem to think of the UK as 'England-plus', though that varies in some places: in the West Country, the wave of modern nationalism that spread across Europe in the eighteenth century still doesn't seem to have hit, and many people are strongly regionalist in their identity. Nationhood and national identity are, of course, to some extent always going to be an artificial construct.

I do find it amusing that for sporting events in which the various UK countries fare well, say the World Cup, for example, England, Scotland, Wales, all field individual teams. But in the Olympics, for example, where the talent pool is different, it's "Team Great Britain" and everyone waves the same flag.

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In Northern Ireland, around the time of the 1986 soccer world cup, there was a lot of talk about amalgamating the two Irish teams into one, as is the case in rugby, where there is a single Irish team (and, at provincial level, the "Ulster" side is drawn from the original nine counties, rather than the six counties which formed 'Northern Ireland' after 1921, and which are now commonly referred to as 'Ulster'). I don't know what happened to that plan, but I suspect it was a mix of unionist opposition (those sort of cross-border initiatives in those days were often viewed with suspicion by those who saw them as an attempt to dissolve the border by stealth) and the fact that the REpublic discovered the grandparent rule, which significantly broadened the talent pool from which it could draw.

Notably, Northern Ireland isn't actually directly represented at the Olympics, being neither part of the "Ireland" team (which specifically represents the Irish Republic), nor "Great Britain" (Britain, from Britannia, which the Romans named the larger of the two major island off the NE coast of Europe, and 'Great' as in larger than Hibernia, or Ireland, as the smaller is now known). Instead, athletes from NI are entitled to try to win a spot in whichever team they prefer on tribal grounds, or (for those who care more about the competition than the flag) whichever they can get into.


For me, it's the commentary on sporting occasions that is the funniest. You can always tell if Andy Murray has won Wimbledon before the result is announced if the English newsreaders refer to him as British. (If he loses, it's back to being Scottish). I particularly remember one occasion in the early eighties on a Grand Prix, a Belfast born driver, John Watson was in the lead and looked likely to win. I believe it was Murray Walker's commentary which ran along the lines of "The British driver John Watson is in the lead, it looks like he's going to win for Britain, and.... no, the Irishman [still referring to Watson] has ben overtaken....." I've seen it on many occasions, it's hilarious.

This sort of confusion was, of course, less funny for poor old Eddie Irvine a decade and a half odds later. F1 very strictly treats drivers as belonging to the "Nationality" stated on their passports. Irvine very much regarded himself as an Irishman, but had a British passport (I have the impression he didn't much care about sectarian loyalties one way or the other), thus when he reached a podium the rules stated that he would be acknowledged with The Queen, and the Union flag. On several occasions there was some confusion with local race organisers less well versed in the status of Northern Ireland, and Amhran na bhFiann was played, along with the raising of the Tricolour. Irvine himself took this all in good humour, but others didn't: members of his family received threatening phone calls after this was done at the Argentinian GP in 1997. Following that incident, Irvine tried to have a neutral flag and 'anthem' registered with him, but the Formula 1 people, in a spectacular display of insensitivity to the nature of Northern Ireland's complicated situation (and thus the difficulties faced by those of its public figures who do not wish to publicly 'pick a side' as it were), refused to accept this "because rules". It's a funny old world.

Well said Edward, I would love to add to it but chances are, I would inevitably cross the political no go area.
What really sticks in my craw, not just with Ireland but anywhere on the globe where someone, somewhere wants to build an empire, it's always in the name of God.
Throughout history there's been the battlecry: "In God's name, charge!"

Edward said:

"Great Britain" (Britain, from Britannia, which the Romans named the larger of the two major island off the NE coast of Europe, and 'Great' as in larger than Hibernia, or Ireland, as the smaller is now known).

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Actually, Great Britain is 'Great' to distinguish it from 'Lesser' Britain, the English colony of Brittany in France.

GHT said:

Well said Edward, I would love to add to it but chances are, I would inevitably cross the political no go area.
What really sticks in my craw, not just with Ireland but anywhere on the globe where someone, somewhere wants to build an empire, it's always in the name of God.
Throughout history there's been the battlecry: "In God's name, charge!"

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To quote Jolly Olly - not a man popular with either tribe in Ireland - "Every man says 'God is on my side'; God must ask 'Who is on my side?'"

HanauMan said:

Actually, Great Britain is 'Great' to distinguish it from 'Lesser' Britain, the English colony of Brittany in France.

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I stand corrected!

Watching the national news and the main lead is some stupid sport item (yeah, I hate sport - so sue me) instead of real news such as the Iranian 'plane crash.

HanauMan said:

Watching the national news and the main lead is some stupid sport item (yeah, I hate sport - so sue me) instead of real news such as the Iranian 'plane crash.

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Real news, is titillation, who is sleeping with whom. I am old enough to remember one of the biggest peacetime events of the 20th century, the assassination of JFK.
It didn't take long before the low life crawled out of the swamp to claim that they had laid the late President, and there was no shortage of news agencies, with wads of cash encouraging others to come forward.
Then History repeated it's itself when Princess Diana died. I guess that the real news that you talk of makes everyone aware of what a sad, dangerous place our planet is. They would rather turn a blind eye to the real news, that's why titillation is so prominent.

Edward said:

Notably, Northern Ireland isn't actually directly represented at the Olympics, being neither part of the "Ireland" team (which specifically represents the Irish Republic), nor "Great Britain" (Britain, from Britannia, which the Romans named the larger of the two major island off the NE coast of Europe, and 'Great' as in larger than Hibernia, or Ireland, as the smaller is now known). Instead, athletes from NI are entitled to try to win a spot in whichever team they prefer on tribal grounds, or (for those who care more about the competition than the flag) whichever they can get into.

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It was my understanding that the "British" Olympic team consisted of all four of the "home nations" of the UK (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales), as well as various dependencies and territories. So someone from say the Falkland Islands or Turks and Caicos were eligible for the team. That could be wrong or outdated information, however.

GHT said:

Penn Station certainly was magnificent. The photos of Euston prior to redevelopment, show it to be grime and soot covered, but since the 50's we have had many a structure cleaned and restored. In a mirror image of Penn and Grand Central, we have a station named St. Pancras. It too was run down and destined for the wrecking ball, but after the destruction of the former Euston, public opinion swayed the decision to demolish it. Nowadays it is the magnificent UK terminus for the international line that takes trains through the tunnel under the English Channel, onto mainland Europe. There is even a weekly, freight only, train direct to China. Here's a couple of photos, before and after the clean up. Click on the link and you will see many a photo of the magnificent refurbished, Victorian arch that spans the platforms.
View attachment 106748 View attachment 106749
Photos of the interior of St Pancras.

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St Pancras was the royal palace in the movie Richard III (1995)

Started my portable mini-baking oven and wondered. Damn, the heating-elements are not working! Opened the oven, tested carefully with my fingers. How could this happen??
Some times later, I saw, that I forgot to put the plug in the socket...

HudsonHawk said:

It was my understanding that the "British" Olympic team consisted of all four of the "home nations" of the UK (England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales), as well as various dependencies and territories. So someone from say the Falkland Islands or Turks and Caicos were eligible for the team. That could be wrong or outdated information, however.

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IT is open to all of those, but the team name is "Great Britain" rather than the UK; Great Britain being very specifically the 'big island', geographically speaking. It's a deft bit of handling by the IOC that keeps them well out of NI identity politics. Clever move!

Trenchfriend said:

Started my portable mini-baking oven and wondered. Damn, the heating-elements are not working! Opened the oven, tested carefully with my fingers. How could this happen??
Some times later, I saw, that I forgot to put the plug in the socket...

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Good thing oven was unplugged...

V.C. Brunswick said:

St Pancras was the royal palace in the movie Richard III (1995)

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What a fascinating snippet, curiosity got the better of me, I just had to look up the rest of the locations used in the making of the film.
This one was a gem: "Steamtown Railway Museum, Carnforth, Lancashire, England, UK (Richard III's military headquarters)"
Here's the full list, and thanks for posting that wonderful snippet of trivia.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114279/locations

GHT said:

What a fascinating snippet, curiosity got the better of me, I just had to look up the rest of the locations used in the making of the film.
This one was a gem: "Steamtown Railway Museum, Carnforth, Lancashire, England, UK (Richard III's military headquarters)"
Here's the full list, and thanks for posting that wonderful snippet of trivia.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114279/locations

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And regarding your post in the Favorite Aircraft thread, there's also a scene in Richard III where Queen Margaret, played by Maggie Smith, leaving for exile in France, boards this Dragon Rapide.

You are not wrong, I had all but forgotten that scene. No doubt when we get to Classic Wings, there will be some information about the aircraft's history. I have found that with other historic memorabilia, most notably steam trains.
You do have a very retentive memory, or are you, like me, a fan of The Bard?

V.C. Brunswick said:

And regarding your post in the Favorite Aircraft thread, there's also a scene in Richard III where Queen Margaret, played by Maggie Smith, leaving for exile in France, boards this Dragon Rapide.

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A little off-topic, but I've never seen or heard of this aircraft before today. Beautiful design!