Advent Calender 09.12.2022
Added 2022-12-09 17:00:13 +0000 UTCOriginal video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1k0t3j2s6Y
Today we are learning something about the UK....Well I guess I learn something about the UK, most of you will already know all of this :D
Comments
Thank you for your thoughts on the video. Yes the J.K. Rowling one was awkward.
Nicologik
2022-12-13 09:31:21 +0000 UTCWow, thank you sooo much for all the information. Feel like I´m back in school, but I actually want to learn about the topic :D :D
Nicologik
2022-12-13 09:30:50 +0000 UTCWith the intro at the beginning and the commercials at the end, there wasn't much time for go into depth in the points they were making in the source video. On thing that rattled me was that they didn't show an English flag when they talked about England being one of the four entities - instead they used the flag of the whole United Kingdom (see the take away below). They also used the "Ulster Banner" for the Northern Ireland flag - probably a bit politically sensitive. The Union Flag - the big criss-crossed red/white/blue thing - is what you get when you overlay three flags - the red on white cross of England, the diagonal white on blue cross of Scotland, and the diagonal red on white cross of Ireland (never really used historically and just "invented" to fit in the Union Flag). Wales doesn't get a bit of the flag because it was already part of the Kingdom before the flag stuff happened. So https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom#/media/File:Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom.svg equals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George%27s_Cross#/media/File:St_George's_Cross.svg plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Scotland#/media/File:Flag_of_Scotland.svg plus https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Saint_Patrick%27s_Saltire.svg You will notice that the Union Flag is not symmetrical - the areas of white on the diagonal are different around the diagonal red bits. In "The Idiot's Lantern", Rose points out to the father that he had the Union Flag upside-down - she could tell because of the asymmetry. My father's parents had four sons. My father - George, and my three uncles - David, Patrick and Andrew. These are exactly the four names of the patron saints of the four entities of the United Kingdom. (Actually, I suspect that once you had named the previous three sons the final name was forced to be "Andrew".) BTW: the other bit of Ireland is still in the EU. I suspect the big thing to take away would be not to mix up "England" (the biggest chunk) with the "United Kingdom" (all of it). So, for example, when you said that Rhys was in "England" a patron pointed out that was incorrect because Rhys wasn't there. If you had said that Rhys was still in the "United Kingdom" it would have been fine. I don't know the "The Time Traveller's Guide" books (and TV series). I have mentioned "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" a few times because there are quite a few tie-ins to "Doctor Who" - for example the writer of the Hitchhiker's Guide was a script editor of Classic Who at one time.
Andrew Vignaux
2022-12-11 00:40:56 +0000 UTCI would remove JK Rowling from that list of three most famous authors,and replace her with Agatha Christie - who has ALSO appeared on Who :) Other almost as famous and influential British authors would be Arthur Conan Doyle (the creator of Sherlock Holmes); and Ian Fleming (the creator of James Bond). Almost as famous would be J.R.R. Tolkien (Lord of the Rings); H. G. Wells (one of the founders of Science Fiction storytelling); Thomas Hardy (not as iconic as the others, but a personal favourite of mine.)
Ian Smith
2022-12-09 18:45:20 +0000 UTCIt used to be the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland because Britain used to rule all of Ireland until they finally achieved independence. Not without a long bitter fight and not entirely. We kept a small area in the north east of the country which we call Northern Ireland because some of the protestants in those parts didn't want to be part of a mostly Catholic country. This has caused strife ever since. I am over simplifying of course butb that's the gist. The Commonwealth is basically those countries which used to be part of the British Empire and are now independent. Not all of them, of course. Only the ones who wanted to still be part of an international group with the Queen (now the King) at its head. She is the official head of state in many of these countries but this has very little practical effect most of the time. Like the UK itself, those countries have their own parliaments which they elect.
Stephen Males
2022-12-09 18:04:02 +0000 UTC
