To have not realised that Cuba is in the Caribbean?

[MeMyShelfandIkea]

Watching Blind Date tonight and one of the couples is on their date in Cuba. I commented to DH did he ever fancy visiting somewhere like that? He said what, the Caribbean? I said no, South America. DH then informs me that Cuba is a Caribbean island and despite showing me on the map I still can't get my head around it!

Tell me I'm not the only one whose geographical knowledge is hopeless

Dunkirk being in Scotland! My children know that Dunkirk is in France and how all the little boats sailed across the Channel to rescue soldiers. They're 9 and 10 and have never been abroad.

The wider world and Cuba not being, geographically, where you thought but posters not knowing about Dunkirk and posters laughing that they thought Belgium wasn't a country! I'm astounded. It's fine to not know but to show boat about not knowing is different.

Click on Google maps and explore (virtually) the world. You can click on 'satellite' and zoom in anywhere.

Re Vienna, on the old Blind Date years ago, a couple were given a trip there, and the woman was ecstatic, going on about how she'd always wanted to go there and how romantic it was. Then they ran the little film of it and her face fell - she'd clearly confused it with Venice.

TeenTimesTwo Calais was an English territory. Look it up!

The Normandy landings/D Day/Operation Neptune was the largest sea born invasion in history. It began the liberation of Europe from Nazi control.

It's sad how people don't know this. I know it was a long time ago but it's such an awesome important part of history. I guess I'm old and out of touch with what, I consider, important.

It's Dinkerque, Dunkirk is in Kent. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk,_Kent just sayin'

I used to think Outer Hebrides was Caribbean

If only it got the same weather . The beaches are just as beautiful as the Caribbean. A few years ago Thailand was caught using photos of Berneray in the Hebrides to promote its beaches.

Calais was under the English crown until 1558. English kings laid claim to the French crown in much of the 13th to 16th century, hence Agincourt, the Hundred years war and Joan of Arc.

I'm extremely shocked by some of these but to not know that Dunkirk is in France and what occurred there during WW2 is beyond ignorant.

Re not knowing Dunkirk is in France:

I wasn’t alive then and not interested enough in WW2 to research it so how would I know

This is perhaps one of the most shocking things I have ever read on Mumsnet.

*The Normandy landings/D Day/Operation Neptune was the largest sea born invasion in history. It began the liberation of Europe from Nazi control.

It's sad how people don't know this. I know it was a long time ago but it's such an awesome important part of history. I guess I'm old and out of touch with what, I consider, important.*

Erm - if this is in ref to the posters not knowing where Dunkirk is, the Dunkirk evacuation was not the same thing as the D-Day landings... The first took place four years before the second

There are three Dunkirks. One in Nottingham, one in Kent and one in northern France.

Jessie:Dunkirk and the D Day landings: different events, ( one was a rescue, one an invasion) different ends of the war and different places.

But... Dunkirk ... it’s not rarefied academic detail, it’s Pub Quiz general knowledge. Common knowledge! There has just been a major film called Dunkirk on general release....

Fair point Scrub I accept I got confused there but the point remains that both of those events were part of the war and so it should be bloody obvious that neither took place in Scotland!

“Mark Rylance and Kenneth Branagh star in this action packed thriller about a small suburb of Nottingham”

And I still don’t understand how Dunkirk is likely to be mentioned in any context other than in relation to the evacuation from its beaches.

Jessie: yes indeed. I agree.

A lot of people mix up the Normandy landings with Dunkirk, to be fair. But are probably aware that neither are in Scotland / that WW2 was not fought on the beaches of Scotland.

Calais was the last English possession held in mainland France and was finally lost to the French in the reign of Mary 1

This is stuff passing from common knowledge to history. Most of us would struggle with the big events of the Boer War.

Thanks scrub. I literally just got mixed up forgetting that “D-Day” refers to the Normandy Landings and not to the Dunkirk evacuation. I always think Dunkirk should be D-Day because it begins with D .

The Boer Wars ended in 1902, the Second World War is still in living memory.

all the ness places are in Scotland.

Orford Ness (Suffolk)

Shoeburyness

And Ness on the Wirral

'Ness' is a headland or promontory, there's probably others.

It's only just within living memory though - it ended more than 70 years ago. Most people alive at the time are no longer with us, so as we have fewer and fewer people around us with direct experience of it, it passes into history and out of common cultural currency. That's just what happens.

I was going to say WW1 rather than the Boer War but the commemorations have informed people so going back a decade or so really makes a difference.
My great gran's sister who I knew had a husband who fought in the Boer War.

I was baffled by a mobile phone contract showing roaming zones stating that the Faroe Islands were in Europe. I was convinced it was a South Pacific island group. Faroe Islands are actually between the north coast of Scotland and Iceland but belong to Denmark