In article <l6ofg0F7r1qU1@mid.individual.net>, Athel Cornish-Bowden
<me@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 2024-03-29 17:44:38 +0000, Paul Wolff said:

> > On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 12:05:31, Janet posted:
> >> In article <l6njctF3nmuU1@mid.individual.net>, me@yahoo.com says...
> >>>
> >>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
> >>>>
> >>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a
> >>>> sentence and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A
> >>>> native speaker would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit
> >>>> in that sentence, regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a
> >>>> learner I don't have that instinct.)
> >>>
> >>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> >>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> >>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and
> >>> Orkney in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population
> >>> about the same as the other two put together.
> >>>
> >>> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
> >>> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
> >>> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
> >>> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
> >>> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
> >>>
> >>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> >>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you
> >>> go to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell
> >>> you that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer
> >>> to to the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la
> >>> Peninsula". I think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans
> >>> don't refer to the continental part as "France"; they call it "le
> >>> continent" or "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but
> >>> I'm fairly sure it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not
> >>> "France".
> >>>
> >>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
> >>> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
> >>> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.
> >>
> >> In Shetland, they refer to their largest island as The Mainland.
> >>
> > In Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, which I believe
> > the French call "Les Iles Normandes", and in sight of the Cherbourg
> > peninsular,

> Right. French people think of Cherbourg as a place where it rains all
> the time (the title of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg was not chosen at
> random). English people think of the Channel Islands as places where the
> sun shines all the time. They can't both be right.

On holiday near the "Normandy Beaches" a few years ago, there was the
wonderful tea towel in a gift shop (we were sheltering from the rain)
Drawing was a weather map of France with the sun shining over Normandy and
rain everywhere else - caption 'The Dream'. Second map: sunshine over all
of France except rain over Normandy - caption: "The Reality"

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té²
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

jerryfriedman wrote:

> "The Danish term /rigsfællesskabet/, translated as "The unity of the
> Realm",[18] the "commonwealth of the Realm",[26][27] or the "Danish
> Commonwealth"[28] refers to the constitutional status of the
> relationship between Denmark, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland.[29]"
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Realm#Naming
>
> The references are to Danish sources and one Nordic source.

Okay, I didn't know that.

--
Bertel, Denmark

Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

>> For some reason I noticed that paragraph before your first
>> paragraph, and I interpreted "continental Denmark" as "Jutland".
>
> Yes, though one usually considers Copenhagen to be on the continent,
> though it's not. I'm not sure whether it's regarded as being in Jutland.

It's certainly not - not by Danes anyway. There is a sort of division in
Denmark between Jutland and Zealand. Jutlanders have traditionally been
seen as slow (which we are) and stupid (which we are not). It has to do
with many Jutlanders in previous times being farmers, and Zealanders -
particularly Copehageners being fast (which they are) and smart (which
they are, but not more that Jutlanders). Jutlanders may refer to Jutland
as the mainland and Zealand as the the Devil's Island.

> I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
> Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
> island?"

I just learned today from tv that Stockholm is build on several islands.
They said that it is called "The Venice of the North", but I have never
heard that before.

--
Bertel, Denmark

On Fri, 29 Mar 2024 18:45:03 +0100
Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On 2024-03-29 15:55:27 +0000, jerryfriedman said:
>
> > Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> > ..
> >
> >> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> >> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> >> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
> >> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
> >> same as the other two put together.
> > ..
> >
> >> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> >> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?
> > ..
> >
> > For some reason I noticed that paragraph before your first
> > paragraph, and I interpreted "continental Denmark" as "Jutland".
>
> Yes, though one usually considers Copenhagen to be on the continent,
> though it's not. I'm not sure whether it's regarded as being in Jutland.
>
> I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
> Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
> island?"
>
I think Paris has outgrown its isle.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

Kerr-Mudd, John <admin@127.0.0.1> wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024 18:45:03 +0100
> Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On 2024-03-29 15:55:27 +0000, jerryfriedman said:
> >
> > > Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> > > ..
> > >
> > >> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> > >> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> > >> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
> > >> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
> > >> same as the other two put together.
> > > ..
> > >
> > >> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> > >> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?
> > > ..
> > >
> > > For some reason I noticed that paragraph before your first
> > > paragraph, and I interpreted "continental Denmark" as "Jutland".
> >
> > Yes, though one usually considers Copenhagen to be on the continent,
> > though it's not. I'm not sure whether it's regarded as being in Jutland.
> >
> > I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
> > Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
> > island?"
> >
> I think Paris has outgrown its isle.

Not really. The 'isle' is the 'Ile de France', not the Ile de la Cite'.
It contains the Departements 75, 77, 78, and 91-95,
so there is room enough, even restricted to inside the Francillienne,

Jan

--
(in case you wonder: 76 is Seine Maritime, on the coast)

On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 18:55:52, Sam Plusnet posted:
>On 29-Mar-24 18:27, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> On 2024-03-29 17:44:38 +0000, Paul Wolff said:
>>
>>> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 12:05:31, Janet posted:
>>>> In article <l6njctF3nmuU1@mid.individual.net>,
>>>> me@yahoo.com says...
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a
>>>>>>sentence
>>>>>> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
>>>>>> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
>>>>>> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
>>>>>> that instinct.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>>>>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>>>>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
>>>>> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
>>>>> same as the other two put together.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
>>>>> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
>>>>> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in
>>>>>modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
>>>>> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
>>>>> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
>>>>>
>>>>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>>>>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
>>>>> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
>>>>> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
>>>>> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
>>>>> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
>>>>> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
>>>>> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
>>>>> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".
>>>>>
>>>>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
>>>>> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
>>>>> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.
>>>>
>>>> In Shetland, they refer to their largest  island as The
>>>> Mainland.
>>>>
>>> In Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, which I
>>>believe the French call "Les Iles Normandes", and in sight of the
>>>Cherbourg peninsular,
>> Right. French people think of Cherbourg as a place where it rains
>>all the time (the title of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg was not chosen
>>at random). English people think of the Channel Islands as places
>>where the sun shines all the time. They can't both be right.
>> Something that has surprised me a little is no that French person
>>I've ever met has claimed that Les Îles Normandes ought logically
>>belong to France. It's just not an issue. Admittedly I live about as
>>far from Cherbourg as it's possible to be without leaving France
>>(1131 km). Maybe people in Normandy think differently.
>>
>
>On the other hand, the architecture on the Channel islands tends more
>towards Germany than France.
>
Germany left a lot of reinforced concrete architecture on Alderney in
1944, and it has proved quite (= very) impracticable to remove it.
--
Paul W

Bertel Lund Hansen wrote on 3/29/2024 :

[Danish geography enjoyed but elided]

> I just learned today from tv that Stockholm is build on several islands.
> They said that it is called "The Venice of the North", but I have never
> heard that before.

You don't deal with Swedish travel brochures much, I guess. I don't
either, but I do get to see advertising for the Canadian Rockies (which
are rockier than the US part of the range), and various seaside areas,
and of course Loss Wages.

/dps

--
The presence of this syntax results from the fact that SQLite is really
a Tcl extension that has escaped into the wild.
<http://www.sqlite.org/lang_expr.html>

jerryfriedman asserted that:
> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>>
>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a sentence
>>> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
>>> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
>>> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
>>> that instinct.)
>
>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series called
>> Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to expect, but
>> OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney in Wikipedia,
>> and learned that the Faroes have a population about the same as the other
>> two put together.
> ..
>
>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred to
>> continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go to
>> Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you that you
>> are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to the peninsula
>> you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I think it's more or
>> less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to the continental part as
>> "France"; they call it "le continent" or "l'hexagone". I've never been to
>> Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure it's the same: they call it "le
>> métropole", not "France".
>
>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If you're
>> in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect you'll be told
>> that you're already in the USA.
>
> I meant to add that I'm sure you're right about Hawaii, but
> you might get quite a different answer in Puerto Rico, the U.S.
> Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, etc.

Puerto Rico has a strong independence faction, but also a strong
faction that wants to be recognized as the 51st state.

Trump didn't play well to either faction after a certain meteorlogical
extreme, IIRC.

/dps

--
Killing a mouse was hardly a Nobel Prize-worthy exercise, and Lawrence
went apopleptic when he learned a lousy rodent had peed away all his
precious heavy water.
_The Disappearing Spoon_, Sam Kean

On 30-Mar-24 0:22, Paul Wolff wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 18:55:52, Sam Plusnet posted:
>> On 29-Mar-24 18:27, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>>> On 2024-03-29 17:44:38 +0000, Paul Wolff said:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 12:05:31, Janet posted:
>>>>> In article <l6njctF3nmuU1@mid.individual.net>,
>>>>> me@yahoo.com says...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a
>>>>>>> sentence
>>>>>>> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
>>>>>>> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that
>>>>>>> sentence,
>>>>>>> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't
>>>>>>> have
>>>>>>> that instinct.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>>>>>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>>>>>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and
>>>>>> Orkney
>>>>>> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
>>>>>> same as the other two put together.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
>>>>>> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
>>>>>> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
>>>>>> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
>>>>>> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>>>>>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If
>>>>>> you go
>>>>>> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
>>>>>> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer
>>>>>> to to
>>>>>> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
>>>>>> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
>>>>>> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
>>>>>> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
>>>>>> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
>>>>>> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
>>>>>> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.
>>>>>
>>>>> In Shetland, they refer to their largest  island as The
>>>>> Mainland.
>>>>>
>>>> In Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, which I
>>>> believe the French call "Les Iles Normandes", and in sight of the
>>>> Cherbourg peninsular,
>>>  Right. French people think of Cherbourg as a place where it rains
>>> all  the time (the title of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg was not
>>> chosen at  random). English people think of the Channel Islands as
>>> places where the  sun shines all the time. They can't both be right.
>>>  Something that has surprised me a little is no that French person
>>> I've  ever met has claimed that Les Îles Normandes ought logically
>>> belong to  France. It's just not an issue. Admittedly I live about as
>>> far from  Cherbourg as it's possible to be without leaving France
>>> (1131 km). Maybe  people in Normandy think differently.
>>>
>>
>> On the other hand, the architecture on the Channel islands tends more
>> towards Germany than France.
>>
> Germany left a lot of reinforced concrete architecture on Alderney in
> 1944, and it has proved quite (= very) impracticable to remove it.

When I was there (many many years ago) one of the gun emplacements had
been used as a holiday let, but it hadn't proved popular. Those large
Napoleonic era forts seemed more adaptable.

--
Sam Plusnet

Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
...

>> I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
>> Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
>> island?"

> I just learned today from tv that Stockholm is build on several islands.
> They said that it is called "The Venice of the North", but I have never
> heard that before.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, that "holm" means "island". Also,
the capital of Iceland is on an island. Maybe the question should be
"Do more European countries have their capitals on islands or not on
islands?" There's still the question of Paris, which Charles raised.

--
Jerry Friedman

On Sat, 30 Mar 2024 01:37:47 +0000, jerry.friedman99@gmail.com
(jerryfriedman) wrote:

>Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>
>> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>..
>
>>> I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
>>> Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
>>> island?"
>
>> I just learned today from tv that Stockholm is build on several islands.
>> They said that it is called "The Venice of the North", but I have never
>> heard that before.
>
>In fact, according to Wikipedia, that "holm" means "island". Also,
>the capital of Iceland is on an island. Maybe the question should be
>"Do more European countries have their capitals on islands or not on
>islands?" There's still the question of Paris, which Charles raised.

Washington DC is in the middle of a sea of corruption.

Paul Wolff wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 18:55:52, Sam Plusnet posted:
>>On 29-Mar-24 18:27, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>>> On 2024-03-29 17:44:38 +0000, Paul Wolff said:
>>>
...

>>>> In Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, which I
>>>>believe the French call "Les Iles Normandes", and in sight of the
>>>>Cherbourg peninsular,

I thought they were les Îles Anglo-Normandes. There must be other
Norman islands.

>>> Right. French people think of Cherbourg as a place where it rains
>>>all the time (the title of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg was not chosen
>>>at random). English people think of the Channel Islands as places
>>>where the sun shines all the time. They can't both be right.
>>> Something that has surprised me a little is no that French person
>>>I've ever met has claimed that Les Îles Normandes ought logically
>>>belong to France. It's just not an issue. Admittedly I live about as
>>>far from Cherbourg as it's possible to be without leaving France
>>>(1131 km). Maybe people in Normandy think differently.
>>>
>>
>>On the other hand, the architecture on the Channel islands tends more
>>towards Germany than France.
>>
> Germany left a lot of reinforced concrete architecture on Alderney in
> 1944, and it has proved quite (= very) impracticable to remove it.

I'd like to mention that I now know everything about Alderney, having
recently read /A Line to Kill/, by Anthony Horowitz. Interesting take
on the Watson-Hastings-Goodwin ploy--the narrator who has to have
everything explained seems indistinguishable from the author.

--
Jerry Friedman

Paul Wolff wrote:

> Germany left a lot of reinforced concrete architecture on Alderney in
> 1944, and it has proved quite (= very) impracticable to remove it.

On the cost of Jutland towards the North Sea/Atlantic Sea there bunkers
lying all over the place. They are so thick and reinforced that it is
virtually impossible to destroy them (an aatomic bomb might do the
trick), so they are just left there.

I don't think that all of the bunkers are German, but those at the west
coast probably are.

http://bunkerne.dk/

A click on a mark will bring in a window from the left, and a new click
on the picture will enlarge it.

--
Bertel, Denmark

Friday, Tony Cooper murmurred ...
> On Sat, 30 Mar 2024 01:37:47 +0000, jerry.friedman99@gmail.com
> (jerryfriedman) wrote:
>
>> Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>>
>>> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> ..
>>
>>>> I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
>>>> Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
>>>> island?"
>>
>>> I just learned today from tv that Stockholm is build on several islands.
>>> They said that it is called "The Venice of the North", but I have never
>>> heard that before.
>>
>> In fact, according to Wikipedia, that "holm" means "island". Also,
>> the capital of Iceland is on an island. Maybe the question should be
>> "Do more European countries have their capitals on islands or not on
>> islands?" There's still the question of Paris, which Charles raised.
>
>
> Washington DC is in the middle of a sea of corruption.

But can you call it an island when it's awash? More of a reef or a
shoal.

/dps

--
"I am not given to exaggeration, and when I say a thing I mean it"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain

Paul Wolff <bounceme@thiswontwork.wolff.co.uk> wrote:

> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 18:55:52, Sam Plusnet posted:
> >On 29-Mar-24 18:27, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> >> On 2024-03-29 17:44:38 +0000, Paul Wolff said:
> >>
> >>> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024, at 12:05:31, Janet posted:
> >>>> In article <l6njctF3nmuU1@mid.individual.net>,
> >>>> me@yahoo.com says...
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On 2024-01-27 01:01:06 +0000, Peter Moylan said:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> (I've just done an Irish dictation, where I had to listen to a
> >>>>>>sentence
> >>>>>> and write it down, and I misheard "aige" as "agam". A native speaker
> >>>>>> would have immediately known that "agam" didn't fit in that sentence,
> >>>>>> regardless of the quality of the audio, but as a learner I don't have
> >>>>>> that instinct.)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
> >>>>> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
> >>>>> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
> >>>>> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
> >>>>> same as the other two put together.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Anyway, from the Orkney article I learned that "Speakers of Old Irish
> >>>>> referred to the islands as Insi Orc 'islands of the young pigs'. The
> >>>>> archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in
> >>>>>modern Welsh and Arcaibh in
> >>>>> modern Scottish Gaelic, the -aibh representing a fossilized
> >>>>> prepositional case ending." Is -aibh a suffix you know?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
> >>>>> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you? If you go
> >>>>> to Tenerife and ask a local how far away is Spain, they will tell you
> >>>>> that you are already in Spain. If you specifically want to refer to to
> >>>>> the peninsula you have to say "el continente" or "la Peninsula". I
> >>>>> think it's more or less the same in France. Corsicans don't refer to
> >>>>> the continental part as "France"; they call it "le continent" or
> >>>>> "l'hexagone". I've never been to Guadeloupe etc., but I'm fairly sure
> >>>>> it's the same: they call it "le métropole", not "France".
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe Hawaii. If
> >>>>> you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away the USA is I expect
> >>>>> you'll be told that you're already in the USA.
> >>>>
> >>>> In Shetland, they refer to their largest island as The
> >>>> Mainland.
> >>>>
> >>> In Alderney, the most northerly of the Channel Islands, which I
> >>>believe the French call "Les Iles Normandes", and in sight of the
> >>>Cherbourg peninsular,
> >> Right. French people think of Cherbourg as a place where it rains
> >>all the time (the title of Les Parapluies de Cherbourg was not chosen
> >>at random). English people think of the Channel Islands as places
> >>where the sun shines all the time. They can't both be right.
> >> Something that has surprised me a little is no that French person
> >>I've ever met has claimed that Les Îles Normandes ought logically
> >>belong to France. It's just not an issue. Admittedly I live about as
> >>far from Cherbourg as it's possible to be without leaving France
> >>(1131 km). Maybe people in Normandy think differently.
> >>
> >
> >On the other hand, the architecture on the Channel islands tends more
> >towards Germany than France.
> >
> Germany left a lot of reinforced concrete architecture on Alderney in
> 1944, and it has proved quite (= very) impracticable to remove it.

Just not taking the trouble, I guess.
In the Netherlands all bunkers in or on the primary lni of dunes
were removed already in the 60s.

The easy howto is a nice physics execise btw.
You might try to invent for yourself,
it is not too difficult,

Jan

Qvt vg serr, whfg n yvggyr ovg vf rabhtu. Oevpx hc nyy bcravatf.
Svyy pbzcyrgryl jvgu frn jngre. Frg bss n fznyy rkcybfvir punetr vafvqr.
Gur jngre cerffher arngyl sbyqf vg bhg, yrnivat puhaxf sbe shegure
phggvat. Cercner n grzcbenel punaary sbe gur frn jngre gb eha onpx.

J. J. Lodder wrote:

> The easy howto is a nice physics execise btw.
> You might try to invent for yourself,
> it is not too difficult,

> Qvt vg serr, whfg n yvggyr ovg vf rabhtu.

How thick walls are we talking about?

--
Bertel, Denmark

On 29/03/2024 18:45, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
> Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
> island?"

Isle of Man. Its status as 'European country' is doubtful, but so is
that of the UK.

On 30/03/2024 11:43, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>
>> The easy howto is a nice physics execise btw.
>> You might try to invent for yourself,
>> it is not too difficult,
>
>> Qvt vg serr, whfg n yvggyr ovg vf rabhtu.
>
> How thick walls are we talking about?
>
What thickness of walls

--
Ray
UK

Bertel Lund Hansen <gadekryds@lundhansen.dk> wrote:

> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>
> > The easy howto is a nice physics execise btw.
> > You might try to invent for yourself,
> > it is not too difficult,
>
> > Qvt vg serr, whfg n yvggyr ovg vf rabhtu.
>
> How thick walls are we talking about?

Order one meter.
The small explosion inside generates a huge overpressure in the water.
(water being nearly incompressible)
Times area give forces that can make even a one meter reinforced
concrete bunker burst at the seams, folding it open.
Just placing demolition charges can make pieces of concrete
fly around over large distances.
This is dangerous and leaves rubble all over the place.

All bunkers that were a danger to the integrity of the dunes
have been cleared away.
All that remains is dug in on the landward side.
There even is a bunker museum,

Jan

Blueshirt wrote:

> jerryfriedman wrote:

>> Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>>
>> > I can't think of a relevant case in English, except maybe
>> > Hawaii. If you're in Hawaii and ask someone how far away
>> > the USA is I expect you'll be told that you're already in
>> > the USA.
>>
>> I meant to add that I'm sure you're right about Hawaii, but
>> you might get quite a different answer in Puerto Rico, the U.S.
>> Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, etc.
>>
>> And what if you asked "How far is it to Britain?" or "How far
>> is it to the UK?" in Northern Ireland, Man, Jersey, Gibraltar,
>> the Falklands, etc.? Would the two questions get the same
>> answer? Would the answer depend on who you asked?

> Jersey, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man and the Falkland Islands are
> not part of the UK, so anybody in those places saying that they
> were already in the UK would be wrong!

Thanks. I have trouble imagining someone asking "How far is
it to the Common Travel Area?" I have no idea what a comparable
question might be in Gibraltar or the Falklands.

--
Jerry Friedman

On Fri, 29 Mar 2024 22:27:48 -0000, J. J. Lodder <nospam@de-ster.demon.nl> wrote:

> Kerr-Mudd, John <admin@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 29 Mar 2024 18:45:03 +0100
>> Athel Cornish-Bowden <me@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> > On 2024-03-29 15:55:27 +0000, jerryfriedman said:
>> >
>> > > Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> > > ..
>> > >
>> > >> Last night we watched the first three episodes of a Faroese series
>> > >> called Trom (less good than the write-up in the TV magazine led me to
>> > >> expect, but OK.) Afterwards I looked up the Faroes, Shetland and Orkney
>> > >> in Wikipedia, and learned that the Faroes have a population about the
>> > >> same as the other two put together.
>> > > ..
>> > >
>> > >> Now a question for Bertel. In the programme several speakers referred
>> > >> to continental Denmark as "Denmark". Does that surprise you?
>> > > ..
>> > >
>> > > For some reason I noticed that paragraph before your first
>> > > paragraph, and I interpreted "continental Denmark" as "Jutland".
>> >
>> > Yes, though one usually considers Copenhagen to be on the continent,
>> > though it's not. I'm not sure whether it's regarded as being in Jutland.
>> >
>> > I sometimes think that a quiz question might be "Apart from the UK,
>> > Ireland, Malta and Cyprus, which European country has its capital on an
>> > island?"
>> >
>> I think Paris has outgrown its isle.
>
> Not really. The 'isle' is the 'Ile de France', not the Ile de la Cite'.
> It contains the Departements 75, 77, 78, and 91-95,
> so there is room enough, even restricted to inside the Francillienne,

There isn't enough room anywhere, ffs people need to stop reproducing at random.

On 2024-03-30 07:36, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> Bertel Lund Hansen <gadekryds@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>
>> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>>
>>> The easy howto is a nice physics execise btw.
>>> You might try to invent for yourself,
>>> it is not too difficult,
>>
>>> Qvt vg serr, whfg n yvggyr ovg vf rabhtu.
>>
>> How thick walls are we talking about?
>
> Order one meter.
> The small explosion inside generates a huge overpressure in the water.
> (water being nearly incompressible)
> Times area give forces that can make even a one meter reinforced
> concrete bunker burst at the seams, folding it open.
> Just placing demolition charges can make pieces of concrete
> fly around over large distances.
> This is dangerous and leaves rubble all over the place.
>
> All bunkers that were a danger to the integrity of the dunes
> have been cleared away.
> All that remains is dug in on the landward side.
> There even is a bunker museum,

I wonder if anyone has told Archie about it.

--
The church is always trying to get other people to reform; it might not
be a bad idea to reform itself a little by way of example.
–Mark Twain

On 30-Mar-24 13:36, J. J. Lodder wrote:
> Bertel Lund Hansen <gadekryds@lundhansen.dk> wrote:
>
>> J. J. Lodder wrote:
>>
>>> The easy howto is a nice physics execise btw.
>>> You might try to invent for yourself,
>>> it is not too difficult,
>>
>>> Qvt vg serr, whfg n yvggyr ovg vf rabhtu.
>>
>> How thick walls are we talking about?
>
> Order one meter.
> The small explosion inside generates a huge overpressure in the water.
> (water being nearly incompressible)
> Times area give forces that can make even a one meter reinforced
> concrete bunker burst at the seams, folding it open.
> Just placing demolition charges can make pieces of concrete
> fly around over large distances.
> This is dangerous and leaves rubble all over the place.

Many years ago a friend placed a pipe bomb in a WWII bunker.
Standing some distance away, the ground shook and a letter-box shaped
sheet of yellow flame came from the front aperture, but the pill box was
quite unharmed.
It wasn't a particularly large pipe bomb.

--
Sam Plusnet

Sam Plusnet wrote:

> Many years ago a friend placed a pipe bomb in a WWII bunker.
> Standing some distance away, the ground shook and a letter-box shaped
> sheet of yellow flame came from the front aperture, but the pill box was
> quite unharmed.
> It wasn't a particularly large pipe bomb.

I just found an article from 2012 about Danish attempts to blow up the
bunkers in 1968. The water-method was tried among other methods, but the
pieces were too large to handle easily.

I guess there was no will.

The article further says that they now want to try without explosives.
There are summer cottages nearby that may be damaged.

--
Bertel, Denmark

Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:

> Sam Plusnet wrote:

>> Many years ago a friend placed a pipe bomb in a WWII bunker.
>> Standing some distance away, the ground shook and a letter-box shaped
>> sheet of yellow flame came from the front aperture, but the pill box was
>> quite unharmed.
>> It wasn't a particularly large pipe bomb.

> I just found an article from 2012 about Danish attempts to blow up the
> bunkers in 1968. The water-method was tried among other methods, but the
> pieces were too large to handle easily.

> I guess there was no will.

> The article further says that they now want to try without explosives.
> There are summer cottages nearby that may be damaged.

Somebody needs to engineer concrete-eating bacteria.

Uh, let me rethink that.

--
Jerry Friedman