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Original poster

Things you’ve only just found out

983 replies

TheChosenTwo · 24/05/2023 18:35

About 2 days ago I discovered that Skegness isn’t in Scotland 😳 How did I never know this before? Embarrassingly, I’m 38 😂

OP posts:
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19
Cattenberg · 25/05/2023 13:40

BodegaSushi · 25/05/2023 13:28

And I learned embarrassingly recently that New Zealand is at 4 o'clock to Australia, and not 2 o'clock. And that it's actually 2 big (main) islands and not just one.

I only realised a few weeks ago that New Zealand isn’t close to Australia - it’s over 1,000 miles away.

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 13:42

Fink · 24/05/2023 22:59

The words must have changed, maybe because of multiple people being confused! We sing 'outside a city wall'.

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Our hymn book still says 'without' though.

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 13:52

romany4 · 25/05/2023 00:23

PopcorningLikeAHappyGuineaPig

I was born on the Isle of Sheppey.
No one has a clue usually where it is when I tell them!!

We used to use the Sheerness to Vlissingen Olau ferry route many years ago, it was wonderful, the most amazing smorgasbord for lunch though I didn't realise how big the Isle of Sheppey was!

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 14:05

Thisistheendof · 25/05/2023 01:05

Imagine my surprise when SiL said they were moving to Hollywood.
The Hollywood that is just south of Birmingham.

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There's an area of Bolton called New York and also one in Lincolnshire, just North of Bunker Hill just to add to the confusion!

ForeverDrowningInClutter · 25/05/2023 14:07

Infusionist · 24/05/2023 19:10

I know that Pontefract isn’t in Wales, but I can’t quite bring myself to believe it.

This one for me too.

And I thought the train station was St Pancreas.

I'm 40 ffs lol!

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 14:13

getafringenotbotox · 25/05/2023 09:53

It is. It isn't far from me.

There is a place called Crank also. Everytime we drive past the sign I say to my husband "Oohh look a town named after you" like the child I am.

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But is there a brown tourist sign for the Jam Butty Mines???

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 14:16

getafringenotbotox · 25/05/2023 09:53

It is. It isn't far from me.

There is a place called Crank also. Everytime we drive past the sign I say to my husband "Oohh look a town named after you" like the child I am.

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We used to have similar marital repartee when we drove by Wittering, Bickering, Loggerheads and so on. It would make an interesting list of place names in the UK, Marital Insults!

Fink · 25/05/2023 14:25

On place names, there is a village in Yorkshire called Londonderry. I'm not sure if I was just not concentrating, or hadn't paid attention or something but I did spend a little time confused about why people on the news were talking about events in Derry-Londonderry as though they were the same place (I'm from a Catholic family, we would never have said Londonderry for the place in NI, but I presume I must at least have heard of it called that) ... 🙄

CharlottenBurger · 25/05/2023 14:26

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 14:13

But is there a brown tourist sign for the Jam Butty Mines???

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Other bloke: I've just come back from Bishop Auckland. Ken Dodd: And how is the old fellow?

PuttingDownRoots · 25/05/2023 14:26

There is also a village in South Yorkshire called Wales.

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 14:29

PuttingDownRoots · 25/05/2023 14:26

There is also a village in South Yorkshire called Wales.

Leeds Castle is in Kent
Bolton Abbey is in North Yorkshire

No wonder people get confused!

Anoana · 25/05/2023 14:36

Tarkan · 25/05/2023 01:44

I recently learned that there's a place in Fife called Newcastle. DH is a bus driver and was showing me various routes and I commented how there were a lot of Fife buses going down to England. He had to tell me about the Fife one which tbh when you think about it definitely makes a lot more sense. Blush

I live in Fife and have never seen a sign for Newcastle! Fife is pretty big though, must be some distance away.

Pudmyboy · 25/05/2023 14:42

Not a 'just found out' but want to share:
When I was a kid in the '70s, we had an older relative who would say how lucky we were nowadays and how hard it was during and after the war (true) and what a struggle it was to 'make hen's meat', which I took to mean a wartime meat substitution recipe (eg soya) for chicken.
Years later I twigged she meant financial difficulty and it was 'making ends meet!

LadyEloise1 · 25/05/2023 14:43

JengaCupboard · 25/05/2023 13:40

After having total embarrassed rage at the petrol station pump, including doing reasonable paint/panel damage by trying to wedge it open with my car key, I learned latterly that my petrol cap locked automatically on the central locking of my new company car, and that no amount of shoving or jemmying was going to open it.

I had 4 miles left in it so had to be 'recovered' as not enough fuel to drive it either home or to a garage to be 'fixed'.

I have never felt so foolish in my actual life when the recovery guy turned up.

The shame.

Ah don't worry I had a man out because there was a bipping sound from my immersion heater.
It was the chirping you get when the battery of the smoke alarm, above the door of the immersion cupboard, is dying. Blush

EpicChaos · 25/05/2023 15:25

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 14:05

There's an area of Bolton called New York and also one in Lincolnshire, just North of Bunker Hill just to add to the confusion!

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There is also a New York and a Washington, in the Tyne and Wear area.

purplehair1 · 25/05/2023 15:45

hettiethehare · 24/05/2023 20:20

I had no idea that Brunei was in Borneo - I had always assumed it was in the Middle East somewhere.

What!!! My old babysitter went to work for the sultan of Brunei - I think? And we visited her in Dubai… maybe he was Sultan of somewhere else. She was his chief air stewardess on his private jet - I know, right? And she got her own maid, horses, apartment, car…

purplehair1 · 25/05/2023 15:46

Have to say I’m learning a lot on this thread…😳

alexdgr8 · 25/05/2023 15:59

LeTempsPerdu · 25/05/2023 07:09

Until very recently, I thought narwhals were mythical creatures, like unicorns. Still find it hard to believe they are real!

until the hideous event at fishmongers' hall, i had never even heard the word narwhal, let alone had any (mis)conception of what it might be or look like.
i was born 1950s.
some of these not knowings/mistakes are astonishing to me, esp re uk geography.
younger people seem to have less general knowledge, or perhaps they just know all about different things.
it's nothing to do with schooling; most of what i know i have gleaned since, outside any formal education.
how could a grown up have mistaken the land mass of russia for america ??
not being rude, but never seen a map on the news, or an atlas, or globe, or travel programme, how ?

ShouldIGoBlonde · 25/05/2023 16:07

That Tina Turner died just yesterday and not been dead for years already, well that’s what I thought for some reason.

JudgeJ · 25/05/2023 16:14

EpicChaos · 25/05/2023 15:25

There is also a New York and a Washington, in the Tyne and Wear area.

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Isn't Washington in T & W where the George Washington family originated from and they took the name?

SouthCountryGirl · 25/05/2023 16:21

A few years ago I had to change at Kings cross st Pancras. Went into the station and couldn't find my train on the boards. I had no idea that there's kings cross international and kings cross

romany4 · 25/05/2023 16:28

JudgeJ

I used to hang out of my bedroom window and watch the ferries go out. All lit up in the evenings. I used to call them "fairy boats"
It was a nice place to grow up. It's gone downhill now I believe but I left 35 years ago.. Find memories though..

CharlottenBurger · 25/05/2023 16:36

SouthCountryGirl · 25/05/2023 16:21

A few years ago I had to change at Kings cross st Pancras. Went into the station and couldn't find my train on the boards. I had no idea that there's kings cross international and kings cross

Kings Cross and St Pancras are two stations next to each other. There is no 'Kings Cross International', just Kings Cross. St Pancras is split into a domestic part (trains to Bedford, Derby, etc) and International (Eurostar to Paris Brussels, Amsterdam).

CharlottenBurger · 25/05/2023 16:38

Plus 'Kings Cross St Pancras' is the Underground station below that serves both.

GellerYeller · 25/05/2023 16:50

@EpicChaos I’m not in West Yorks but family there knew the chap with the last remaining liquorice plant from the Portillo show. Can confirm they believe he/it’s still there! The content of the local soil being well suited to that particular root is how it all started I think. Elder Yorkshire folk often call liquorice ‘Spanish’.

Does the Welsh confusion come from Pontypridd perhaps?