Things you’ve only just found out

[TheChosenTwo]

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

The same with English and the radio, the BBC had to pick an accent to broadcast in, they chose RP as being the easiest for people to understand.

There are these things called mountains. Nice, that hot sunny city on the Med, has a ski resort not far away in the southern Alps, called Isola 2000.

The Southern Alps are in New Zealand. But I know what you mean.

In my first proper job one of the office staff was really puzzled because her daughter was going skiing with the school, to Italy and she thought Italy was hot.

My children have citizenship through this route. I already had it since birth. It didn't involve a lot of money, just a standard passport amount, under £100. It didn't matter too much as we're also entitled to EU citizenship through a different claim, but Irish is one of the generous ones where they can then pass citizenship onto their own children, for infinite generations, as long as each generation gets citizenship before their own child is born.

This brings me onto something I didn't know until a few years ago (well into adulthood): I thought that all countries had similar rules for bestowing citizenship (born in the country, parent born there etc.). It was news to me that countries each have their own regulations which differ vastly. My sister lived in country where it's basically impossible to ever get naturalised as a citizen regardless of how many generations you're there. Her husband got Italian citizenship by hiring someone to do his family tree and find an Italian great great grandparent.

We were based there in the 70s

Parents used to boast about skiing in the mountains in the morning and then waterskiiing in the afternoon. Because they could.

@sashh

The Southern Alps are in New Zealand. But I know what you mean.

Yes, I hastily translated Alpes du Sud, 'Southern French Alps' would have been better.

@sashh

The Southern Alps are in New Zealand. But I know what you mean.

Yes, I hastily translated Alpes du Sud, 'Southern French Alps' would have been better.

Having thought about it a bit more, I realised that my typing fingers knew that 'southern Alps' was an adjective ('southern'), lower case 's', followed by 'Alps', (proper noun, capital 'A') which is conventionally used alone to discuss a European mountain range. They also knew (of course they did! 😀) that the Southern Alps (proper noun phrase (capital 'S', capital 'A') are a mountain range extending along much of the length of New Zealand's South Island. My mouth knows that such a distinction would not be apparent when speaking, so would add 'you know, the ones in New Zealand' or use 'Alpes Maritimes'. I hope you won't find this answer pass-agg; it's not meant to be, just my OCD kicking in.

interesting well made points about irish citizenship but must say as far as I'm concerned O Toole is a yorkshireman - born in leeds, grew up there. Assume rada cleaned up his accent. Ireland has long been somewhat "liberal" on these things I think. They used to have (maybe no more) a very very low tax rate for artistes/writers wotnot. I used to know a freelancer based in UK who wrote about IT/tech FFS and managed to get himself taxed under this.

AFAIK Peter O'Toole was half-scottish and half-irish but was born in Leeds, which makes him English and a yorkshireman.

They capped the amount of creative income that's untaxed.

As someone who grew up in a country other than the ones my parents came from, I don't think it's as simple as where you're born and grew up is your only national identity. People have vastly differing levels of attachment/identification with various countries; it's possible to feel quite strongly attached to a particular heritage without having lived in that country. I don't know anything about Peter O'Toole in particular and whether he might have tried to pretend to be something he wasn't (a bit like Michael Caine making a career out of being a Cockney), but in general I think the point stands.

@CharlottenBurger FWIW I didn't see your point as passive aggressive but more of a grammar point which I too thought even as I read it. I don't know, or need to know, whether you have diagnosed OCD or not, but I do think OCD is a term branded about too flippantly by some people, not necessarily you! It is, after all, an extremely fidtressing and disabling mental illness for both sufferers and their families.

My own 'no, no I really, really didn't mean what I said' moment came when flying over the Pyrenees and my young dc's asked what mountains they were. I replied: 'They're the Pennines'. I have never been allowed to forget it by my DH! Causes much mirth all round. So of course the Pennines are now always referred to as the Northern Pyrenees in our family

...something he wasn't (a bit like Michael Caine making a career out of being a Cockney)

Why isn't he a Cockney? He (Maurice Joseph Micklewhite) was born in Rotherhithe, which although south of the river, would have been just about within the sound of Bow Bells. There's no rule that you have to be born north of the river that I know of.

No, you can be born south of the river, but there are various maps that show where the bells could be heard from, and Rotherhithe is outside, even before industrialisation. It's too far southeast.

This map of the zone in which the Bow Bells could be heard in 1851, compared to now, includes a tiny bit of the Rotherhithe peninsula

Right, but not the bit where Caine was born. And he also wasn't born in 1851. 😂Maybe if he'd been born in 1751 he would have stood a chance.

I am a Cockney, and it's not a designation we share lightly! He can count himself lucky he was born before the bells were destroyed in WWII, some of my Boomer family are bitter about that😂

He may have been born in Rotherhithe but he grew up near Elephant and Castle, significantly further west, and still well south of the river, but possibly within the range of the map above. Tough, tough area at the time. Transformed out of all recognition in the last few years now that a private developer is rebuilding the huge housing estate by the station.

Random and very morbid but I saw on Twitter the other day, how people who die on my Everest don’t have their bodies recovered! I ne r knew this! Some are there from decades ago and used as landmarks eg ‘green boots’ and ‘ sleeping beauty’ I honestly could not believe it!

I think people just don't realise how big and massive Everest is, especially when the only context they have is perhaps the "mountains" in the UK. Everest is fucking huge!!

Imagine trying to find a body somewhere between Big Ben and Canary Wharf... You know roughly where they might be... you saw them leave towards Trafalgar Square but that was 12 hours ago... Good luck!

My friends who went climbing in the Alps in France found some bodies that had, it turned out, been missing for over 10 years, They took photos and the gendarmes had the film developed and planned an expedition to recover them. They knew who the people were.

My mother was born near the Old Kent Road 11 years earlier. I think it's just out the zone to the south. She didn't make a big thing about being a Cockney.

But in climbing season there are only a couple of routes. What I could not do (even if I was able to climb) is climb past people who are alive but in the process of dyeing.

It's not a question of not knowing where the bodies are it is that the process of recovery is so dangerous.

@CharlottenBurger

Oh there are some things I get really picky about.

I must admit, when doing French history and when they were talking about the Dauphin I spent a few lessons wondering how a dolphin was part of it all.

I was reading about recovering bodies from Everest recently. I don't think many/any people are left to die alone, on purpose. There was a story in the news a few years back about people leaving another (British) climber to die, but this article said that it was misreported and most people either didn't notice him or thought he was just resting, and when they did realise, he was given help (although too late, he did still die). And there was an American climber who died (Sleeping Beauty), but others did stay with her for as long as they could, until they had to descend to save themselves. There was also the story of a climber who abandoned his summit attempt because he was put off by the bodies.

Well, it might be a case of you dying if you tried to help them?

I thought I covered that with 'dangerous'. But yes I meant recovering a body could lead to other deaths.

I'm definitely old enough to remember the Vietnam war, (and Suez if I'm honest). A few years ago I did think for a second that Pol Pot was still around and had won X-Factor or one of those types of things!