SOME SCOTTISH TRIVIA

                                                Fun Tid Bits

v  The thistle has been the symbol of the country for 500 years. Legend has it that sleeping Scots were awakened by invading Vikings when they cried out after stepping on thistles in their bare feet. The Scots won the battle and the guardian thistle made it into history.

v  Language originally was Celtic based with some Gaelic and a smattering of Norse dialects.  By 1980 less than two percent of the population understood Gaelic. Gaelic is most popular on the Isle of Sky where 60% of the population speak the language. Accents and dialects have not developed in Scotland as they have in England.

v  The Highland games started more than 1000 years ago. Bagpipe playing and dancing are always part of the games.

v  After a wet harvest centuries ago, finding a way to use rain soaked barley resulted in the national whisky known as scotch. Scotch is the whisky, not the name of the people who inhabit the country. They are Scots, and the adjective is Scottish.

v  Big Bertha, a huge shipbuilding crane, is now a monument to the vast and prosperous ship-building industry that made the city of Glasgow famous. The last ship built on the Clyde was the Q E 2 in 1962. During W W II a warship a day rolled off the rails into the River Clyde. The 24-hour a day operation was incredible when 2000 ships hit the seas in a six year period. Before the war most of the ships built were passenger ships including all of the Cunard line ships. At one point the shipbuilding industry employed over 200,000 people. The ships were not only built here, but fully outfitted here as well. To say something is Clyde built means that it is quality and built to last. The River Clyde is but 78 miles long and has as much as a 20-foot tide here in the city.

v  In Dornoch. we visited the 1239 Presbyterian Church where a couple of elderly docents told us this was where Madonna had her son christened and that Prince Charles also had visited the church. The ladies proudly told us that the hotel across the street was once the home of Andrew Carnegie,

        They forgot to tell us that Dornoch is the area where the last witch burning in Scotland took    place in 1722. An old woman was accused of turning her daughter into a pony and riding it around town. She was sentenced to be burned alive in a pot of boiling tar.

v  All the museums in Glasgow are free.

SOME ENGLISH TRIVIA

                                           Fun Facts

        Since the  English drive on the left side of the road, they enter a round-about to the left, which seemed strange indeed!

               Birmingham is known as the city of 1000 trades, as there were no trade guilds in the city. The trade guilds always have been, and still are, very strictly controlled.

          
  One evening we went to the local church and climbed up into the bell tower for the weekly bell ringing. It is a very involved and precise activity. The six men and women were playing tunes on the bells, and being pretty much tone deaf, I have to admit I didn’t hear much difference in the sounds. It is quite a knack to get the bells upright, where they stay until finished, and then they are lowered over a period of time. Once upright they swing and their weight turns them around in a 360-degree range. The whole process is much more complicated than I ever thought.

          
  Mr. Fortnum of the Fortnum and Mason department store was the butler to Queen Anne in the 1700s. As such, he was given the used candles. A candle was only lit once, even if it burned only for seconds. He collected these used candles, sold them, and made enough money to leave the Queen’s service and to go into business with Mr. Mason.

            A yeoman farmer is one who owns his farm vs. a tenant farmer who rents his plot of land.

            All bus and truck drivers in England, by law, are required to stop for a 45-minute rest every 4-½ hours. They are limited to driving NO more than 9 hours a day.

            I’ve previously explained ceiling bosses. Well, a carble head is the decorative part at the end of a column or curved piece in a structure. They often are concrete and appear carved with a figure of a head or a floral motif.

            It was light a little after 4:00AM each day, and stayed light until nearly 10:00PM.

          
  I had to put up with duvets at two of the hotels. I still dislike them, and am much happier with blankets.

            China clay is quarried, but only a small amount of it is sent to the china industry. It is the paper industry that has a big demand for it, as it is the substance that makes paper shiny for all those colored ads.

            A Lemon Shanty is a drink that is half beer and half lemonade.