History lesson

I'm regularly asked about this, so here goes:-

The country I am a national of and used to live in is called The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It is quite acceptable to call this for short Britain or the UK.

It is not acceptable to call it England, Great Britain or GB.

England is the name of a historical part of the UK and to confuse the two is a solecism akin to calling the old Soviet Union Russia.

Great Britain is the name of an island - the big one off the coast of France which London is on. It's not the name of a country. Having said that, by quirks of history, "GB" denotes the UK in the following limited circumstances:-

* GBP is the recognised international abbreviation for the British currency, the pound sterling.

* GB are the initials you put on your car to signify it is British.

* GBR is the recognised abbreviation for the UK in international sports competitions.

While we're on the subject of sport, if you've been paying attention so far you will already have spotted that the UK is the only country in the world which gets to enter more than one team in international football competitions: four, in fact, these being England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. (These four separate teams also represent the UK at the Commonwealth Games.)

Historically, there were two separate kingdoms, England and Scotland. In 1603, King James VI of Scotland inherited the throne of England upon the death without nearer heirs of his cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. He thereby became King James I of England but it must be emphasised that the two kingdoms remained separate and independent of each other (legally, if not always in practice): it was just that the same guy happened to be the king of two different kingdoms.

In 1707, England and Scotland formally merged to become a single United Kingdom of Great Britain.

Wales' warring petty principalities had not quite got their acts together to merge into a single state by the 13th century when they were all conquered by England: in 1301, King Edward I of England conferred the title Prince of Wales on his son and heir. Ever since, the heir to the throne of England/the UK (the "Crown Prince" although that's not a term used in Britain) has been known as the Prince of Wales: the current holder is Prince Charles. Wales was formally incorporated into England in 1536.

Ireland's warring petty kingdoms also hadn't quite got it together when they too were invaded by England in the 13th century. The kings of England styled themselves Lord of Ireland until 1541, thereafter King of Ireland - another case of one king, two kingdoms (three after 1603).

In 1801, Ireland was formally merged with the UK to form The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

In 1922, 26 of Ireland's 32 counties seceeded from the UK to form the Irish Free State with its capital at Dublin. This was like Canada and Australia remain to this day: independent of the UK but with the monarch of the UK as its formal head of state. The IFS became the Republic of Ireland 1949.

In 1927, meanwhile, the UK had assumed its present title of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland - the part of Ireland which remains a part of the UK - is often referred to as Ulster but that is a mistake as well because Ulster was an ancient province of Ireland which includes the County of Donegal which was amongst those which seceeded from the UK in 1922 and is now in the Republic of Ireland.

A word or two about the Irish "troubles" as we call them with characteristic British understatement. When "the 32 counties" seceeded from the UK in 1922, this was a partition along ethnic lines exactly the same as India/Pakistan in 1947 and the messy break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The population of the "6 counties" (Northern Ireland) which remained in the UK was majority Protestant in contrast to the Roman Catholic majority in the rest of Ireland. But of course, it's impossible to draw a nice neat line of demarcation and the Catholic minority left in NI began an intifada in the 1970s. This was brought to an end by an agreement in 1998.

Since the 1990s NI, Scotland and Wales have had regional autonomy from the UK - just as the Azores and Madeira have autonomy from Portugal but we call it "devolution" in Britain.

I hope you've been paying attention to all that because I'll be asking questions later ...

PS - another thing which gets on my wick: there's no such thing as "the British Navy" - it's called the Royal Navy. This is a mistake sometimes even the BBC makes. Tsk ...

Portuguese Man o' War

From a distance - whether floating or washed up like this one - these look like discarded bottled water bottles (it gets me every time) until you get up close and find them to be the beautiful but deadly Portuguese Man o' War jellyfish. The inflated bladder floats above the surface of the sea and they are carried along by the wind, hence the nautical name.

OK, they're not "deadly" but I believe they're pretty blooming stingy. It's never happened to me yet but if it's anything like these big reddish-brown ones you get in Scotland which come up on anchor chains (esp nasty if a gobbet of it pings you in the face) - same with pulling up creels I expect - then I'm going to be giving POMW's a wide berth.

Cabriolet

The flatback truck is the vehicle of choice for many on this island. These range from that ubiquitous workhouse, the Toyota Hilux to ... err ... ones bigger than Hiluxes but I'm afraid I don't know the names of any other FBTs. "Canter" is one. It may be a Mitsubishi - or is that the "Fuso"? I don't know...

But I digress because the point of this post is to draw attention to how the FBT can be adapted to the carriage of one's staff as well as one's stuff. Thus, the following example which I dubbed the Toyota Hilux Cabriolet:-

Note the exquiste coach work hand crafted from pallets and plastic sheeting.

Now in case anyone thinks I'm taking the mick (moi?), absolutely not because this Toyota belongs to my neighbour Vitor who's a very handy guy and who, if he's got a job on in a neighbouring village and it's been a bit rainy of late, would think nothing of knocking this up to keep the chaps dry en route. (More to the point, he probably got one of the chaps to knock it up for him - and if that's not good management, I don't know what is).

The reason I'm so impressed is that I'm a soft handed townie who can barely change a lightbulb so converting a Hilux to a cabriolet looks to me like one of these TV show challenges or executive weekends where you get a couple of pallets, a roll of plastic sheeting and off you go. I'm sure my attempt would wobble ignominiously to a collapse as the Hilux took it's first corner. So if I ever achieved a Hilux cabriolet of such sturdyness (is that a word?), I would want to preserve it for ever but what does Vitor do? He calmly dismantles it when the rainy spell finishes ... I was like that!

Abel Tasman

There are certain events which are milestones each year, for example, the first cagarro of the year (February) and the first tourist (early April). Well yesterday was the first yacht of 2009

A big Dutch schooner (due to foremast being shorter than aft mast - other way round and it would be a ketch or a yawl depending on the relative position of the rudder post) of about 55-60 feet (17-18m) called Abel Tasman, the Dutch explorer of the South Seas after whom Tasmania is named. And, indeed, the Tasman Sea although I'd need to get an atlas out to remind myself exactly where that is - is it the bit between New Zealand and Australia? Might want to go 50/50 on that and if the computer didn't take away the bit between Oz and whatever it is that's north of Oz - New Guinea? - I'd be phoning a friend (you know who you are). But I digress because having a Dutch yacht called Abel Tasman is a bit like having a British yacht called the Captain Cook. And that in turn is bit like having a car registered your initials 1.

Being a something of a nautical cove myself, I can tell you Fajã Grande is not a safe anchorage and only ever tenable in the calmest of weather as we've been having for the last few days. The slighest hint of a blow and you have to clear well out to sea. After all, these jaggy rocks in the foreground could make a right mess of your topsides ...

House Numbers

I'd promised a couple of posts back to tell you all about how they're putting house numbers up in Fajã Grande so here goes:-

They're putting up house numbers in Fajã Grande ...

... and in case you're thinking this is like the moment in Blackadder where Sir Walter Raleigh says to the Queen "Perhaps, Ma'am, I could entertain you with the tale of the time I fell into the water and was almost eaten by a hammerhead shark?" and with Her Majesty's assent proceeds "Well, ma'am, I fell into the water and was almost eaten by a hammerhead shark", there is actually more - but not a lot - to be said on the house numbering saga.

I'm not sure who is carrying out the house numbering initiative but, whoever "they" are, they've chosen discreetly classy uniform brass numbers which are being applied to all houses. Here is Number 7, Rua Senador André de Freitas (you've got to look closely, it's to the right of the door but a bit squint I think):-

Now I can tell you for a fact that José António Ramos Teodósio has been successfully receiving parcels addressed simply to "JART Flores" for as long as - well - as long as he's been old enough to receive parcels. Indeed I myself have received a letter (from the Inland Revenue, inevitably) addressed simply to "Mr N King, Main Street, Flores". That's the sort of place this island is. Someone told me that the usual postie knows where everyone lives but, when he's on holiday, the relief postie struggles a bit and will appreciate the house numbers - but I'm reasonably certain that person was pulling my plonker.

Anyway, the main street, Rua Senador André de Freitas, has been all "numbered up" as has Rua da Tronqueira - which until the recent orgy of putting up the street names (see posts passim) we just called "the street where José Grande lives" and the house at the end of which bears the highest number yet seen, 43 - but there the numbers run out. In particular, they haven't yet started on our street:-

We've counted up the road and reckon we're going to be in the high twenties RdA - the uncertainty is whether some houses down little side caminhos (lanes) will count as being on RdA itself. I'm also slightly gutted to find that it's spelt AssOmada as I had always believed it was AssUmada - although you do see it spelt with a "U" as well. So I'm not sending out any change of address cards yet.

Actually, I think it's great the way they just get on and do things round here. If Fajã Grande was in Scotland where I come from, it would undoubtedly be a conservation village which would mean not a single house number could be put up until the Planning Commitee had received reports from Historic Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage (who of course would need to consult with their statutory consultees) and a risk assessment had been commissioned from the Health & Safety Exectuve and ... ... ... (yawn, snore) Here, they just send a couple of geezers with a wheel barrow to get on with it.

World Tour

A batch of printer ink which has seen the sights of Puerto Rico and Brazil on its 6 week odyssey to the Azores from Manchester.

This is not the first time this has happened. Because I initially believed the name of the street we were going to be living on was Canada Assomada (as opposed to its actual name Rua da Assomada), that was the forwarding address I gave my pension company. Do to the fact that AXA's computer slightly cocked up that already cocked up address, and compounded by the precise size of windows in the envelopes employed by AXA, what the postie sees is "Neil King, Canada Assomada, Faja Grande, Ilha das Flores, Canada". So my annual pension statements do the rounds of a country located to the north of the USA before someone (probably in Thunder Bay, Yukon Territory or similar) tears a nick in the envelope below the window to reveal the magic word "Portugal".

Incidentally, I don't know why AXA bother sending me these reams of paper round the world when they could equally well send me a text saying "You're going to get stuff all."

Useful links

I gather it's good manners in blog-land to add a link to one's favourite blogs so these are mine:-

Life at the end of the Road - crofting and car ferry maintenance on a Scottish island

Le Moulin - watermill restoration in France with a culinary twist.

Enjoy.