Ryanwhere is Scotland? A question asked by one of its staff to a Polish family returning to Scotland from Portugal.
It was all to do with different Covid regulations applying to Scotland and England.
And fair’s fair because it’s complicated too for those of us who share this island of Britain.
It is of course an occupational hazard of being one of Jock Tamson’s Bairns (that’s being a Scot).
And on my first visit to America nearly 40 years ago the young people I’d meet would ask me if Scotland was in England.
The capital of North Dakota
Sign of the times: Ryanair staff
It irked me then until my American History tutor I learned under when I got back and studied in Aberdeen asked me what the capital of North Dakota was?
And like all lessons in life it’s stuck: Bismarck.
All of which ramblings brings us to Ryanair‘s flash sale which ends tomorrow, midnight, Sunday, January 30.
Michael O’Leary’s empire, of course, is built on a model of flying to out-of-the-way destinations to cut down on prices for the punters.
And so Scots (and non-Scots) have had to become educated in towns we’d never heard of before.
Some of them are also in the same country as the destination we want to visit.
Some out-of-the-way places
Suits you sir: Legoland
For our Ryanair pal Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, which is the northern country of the island of Britain.
And it, and Scotland’s largest city Glasgow, is €9.99, from my old stomping ground of Dublin (Ireland that is, not Ohio).
But like Geography Gio we had to look up the map to find some of these others.
Billund in Denmark is the cheapest destination on offer at €7.99.
The bad news is that if you wanted to see Copenhagen then you’d have to island hop and it’s 261kms away.
Eindhoven, 122kms south of Amsterdam, too comes in at €7.99.
And while I’m sure that Eindhoveners are very friendly, their centrepiece the Philips Electronic Museum is always going to be a hard sell.
Do you know these cities?
A Star in Hamburg
Happy Hamburg is in the same price bracket and is instantly recognisable for anybody who has seen the map of Europe more than once.
Now I’ve had the good fortune to attend the German Travel Mart in Dresden and stay abreast of most of what is going on in Deutschland but Memmingen? Sorry.
Well, the old Roman fortress town is 116kms west of Munich and is clearly a smaller airport than the Bavarian capital which you can get lost in (trust me).
Pole star: Lublin
We dare say too that in Lublin‘s fair city the girls are so pretty.
Only it’s pronounced Looblin and is in Poland, 170kms south-west of capital Warsaw.
And you can get there for €12.99 where film buffs may recognise if from the film The Reader.
So the next time an airline worker asks you Ryanwhere is Scotland (insert your own country) then take five.
And reflect on the fact that we don’t all know where each other live.
*Enjoy an extra special Christmas Eve performance of The Nutcracker by the Scottish Royal Ballet
*Join your Wendy Wu touring family for a Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day lunch at the Intercontinental Edinburgh, followed by a fun-filled festive party.
*Sip champagne and embark on a private, out-of-hours tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia, exclusive to Wendy’s guests.
*Tuck into a champagne afternoon tea and overnighter on the Fingal
*Sample festive flavours with a paired chocolate and whisky tasting at the Aberfeldy Distillery
*Shop under the dazzling lights of Glasgow’s Christmas markets.
Savings on the way
And so let’s boil this down further…
*A carefully handpicked selection of 4* hotels.
*All meals including a sumptuous Christmas lunch on Christmas Day.
*Exceptional local guide with you every step of the way.
*All daily tours, sightseeing and entrance fees.
Book by 15 November and save £75pp on this tour.
Yes, there you have it, Wu, Wu, this is how Scots do Christmas.
Craig Sera Sera, that’s a wrap from the 12th Bond.. and he’ll sure miss those exotic missions.
So which countries has 007 visited most, other than England where he works?
Well of the 50 he’s been to, Italia would seem to have been his favourite with the spy having touched down in Il Bel Paese eight times.
Pasta Master
Venice: And let’s catch a gondola back to Padova
Rome, Venice and Como have inevitably been stick-on locations for any filmmaker and international man of mystery.
And this time it’s the European City of Culture for 2019, Matera, which is getting its place in the sun this time.
With its houses. built into caves, cobbled streets and high arches a dramatic backdrop for the opening scenes.
And Felice Giorni for Matera with the town’s mayor, Raffaello De Ruggieri, predicting its association with Bond will be worth $20 million to the local economy.
In truth this is probably the highpoint of the movie, and all before the credits and Billie Eilish’s disappointing dirge of a soundtrack.
As Daddy’s Little Girl rightly pointed out the best bits were the locales.
Live and Let Spy
Love a duck: At Epcot Centre, Florida
With Britain and America enjoying that much feted special relationship it is unsurprising that The Oo Es of Eh is his next favourite stop-off.
And we particularly enjoy his forays into Florida and its keys… whose pleasures I had to put off on the outbreak of Covid but where I intend to fulfil just as soon as.
Ski another day
Like an Alpine skier: In the Austrian Tyrol
Next up might be less predictable, Austria, but then we have to remember its stunning snowscapes and Bond’s love of winter sports which of course we share.
Although we have never seen him on the slopes of Soll while we have enjoyed skiing alongside some dapper fancied-dressed folks.
And we look forward to seeing a penguin-suited Bond on the piste some time soon.
For Bond anoraks it’s an easy question but which is the only country in a film title?
The spy who came in from the Red
Dance away: Russia
Yes, the old Soviet Union, or Russia as we knew it in shorthand.
And as well as the titular film From Russia With Love, Bond turns up in Fabergeland another three times.
Turkish crossroads
Hamam bam: Istanbul
It has been the crossroads for espionage since first the first looked out over each other at either side of the Bosphorus.
And, of course, Istanbul, has been an ideal backdrop for Bond’s adventures… and yours, and mine with three films taking in Turkey’s biggest city.
Three’s a charm
Limber up: The next Bond?
And among those countries where Bond has a trio of visits is Hong Kong, Spain, the Bahamas, Scotland, his homeland and Jamaica where Ian Fleming penned the books.
And the West Indies’ biggest island is where we first fell in love with Bond on the Laughing Waters beach in Ocho Rios.
Or Sean Connery to be more precise, even if you were a red-blooded bloke, you actually wanted to be him.
Wear a swimsuit: Craig as Bond
And be with Ursula Andress.
There was much fuss too about Daniel Craig with his take on coming out of the water, ripped and in a pair of budgie smugglers.
Of course, elephants belong in their natural habitat and that’s Africa and Asia.
One of schoolkids’ favourite animal questions they like to stump you with is how you can tell the difference.
And the obvious answer would be that if you’re in Africa which I was (Eastern Cape) it’s an African.
And if you’re in Asia then it’s an Asian.
But, yes, Africans have much larger ears while Asians have smaller, rounder ears.
Ears looking at you: Definitely African
Of course such beautiful creatures are favourite ornaments and you can easily bump into them in your lodge in South Africa.
I’ve heard too of destinations where they roam freely through the lobby of your hotel which is as it should be…
After all, they were here first!
All of which heavy thumping around the subject brings me to an important matter in hand, their protection.
And a very important initiative being run by Holly Budge.
Holly is the founder and director of the non-profit international organisation How Many Elephants which has been heralded by none other than Sir David Attenborough.
The elephant’s friend
Taking a snooze: The gentle elephant
Holly has raised over £400,000 for environmental projects.
She truly is the elephant’s friend and it is no exaggeration to say that without hers and others’ efforts their very survival is at risk.
Ninety-six African elephants are poached every day for their ivory, and at this rate, they’ll be extinct within a decade.
Herd about their plight: Elephants on the move
Holly’s global travelling exhibition displays 35,000 elephant silhouettes to show the annual poaching rate in Africa.
She can’t do it all alone, of course and that’s where Margot Dempsey comes in.
She launched World Female Ranger Day to support female rangers on the front line of wildlife conservation.
And she speaks passionately about the subject which again you are best checking out online.
Lest we forget and famously elephants never do… they were here first.
And it warms the heart, this tale of elephants in Edinburgh or Africa.
Where his grandfather, the eminent Scottish engineer of his time (also Robert) made his mark.
Robert’s piece de resistance was the Bell Rock, the world’s oldest surviving sea-washed lighthouse, built on an outcrop of the Inchcape reef and accessible at low tide.
Young Robert might have expected to follow in the family lighthouse design business.
The real Treasure Island
Treasure Island: Long John Silver
Robert Louis (originally Lewis) though did base his Treasure Island on the Fidra Island in the Firth of Forth.
Where David and Thomas Stevenson built theirs which has been automated since 1970.
And which the Scottish Seabird Centre has its cameras set on to keep an eye on its seabird population.
Travel bug
Wall art: In a North Berwick alley
It was here then that Robert got his Travel bug which would see him circumnavigate the globe.
Stevenson’s love of Travel was both lyrical and practical as he sought warmer climes more conducive to his bronchial problems.
And he would say: ‘We are all travellers in the wilderness of this world.’
That and. his marriage to American Fanny Van De Grift led to him seeking out many of the familiar, but also the wildernesses of this world.
Travel books
Samoa the merrier: A recreation of RLS’s rooms in Western Samoa
And so he gave us a rich legacy of Travel books as well as his bumper fiction books.
With his entry into this world showing what a master he was with his 200km hike in south-central France, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes.
A passion we both share for Southern France and hiking. And Robert was to return to France and Belgium for another venture, canoeing this time, in An Inland Voyage.
The Amateur Emigrant, Across the Plains and the Silverado Squatters covers RLS’s American peregrinations and there is a museum there too in the Napa Valley in California.
And then we get In the South Seas, a celebration of Samoa where he set down roots and lived out his days.
RLS truly loved the South Seas island of Samoa and championed their rights in the face of exploitation from the super powers in letters to The Times.
In RLS’s footsteps
From the author’s mouth
And the West Samoans loved him back erecting a museum to the man they called Tusitala ‘Tale Teller’ on the 100th anniversary of his death in 1994.
It’s one of those annoying Government buzzwords so let’s claim it back with a Rainy Days and Songdays Green Lighting megamix around the world. Our favourite songs with ‘green’ in the title and the countries where they transport us.
As a recruiting call for Ireland our pals at Tourism Ireland would have been proud as in true singer style Johnny namechecks everywhere on the Emerald Island.
Quite who the girl from Tipperary town with the lips like eiderdown is Johnny would never say, perhaps because June would have killed him.
The old rogue Burns was pure rock’n’roll and could pen a lyric and a tune which is probably why he is held in such high regard by the greatest singer-songwriters of the latter half of the 20th century.
With Bob Dylan, no less, crediting the Scot as his greatest inspiration.
The Milanese Verdi had the support of Gaetano Donizetti from nearby Bergamo whom he visited in Vienna which, of course, was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
And that included Bohemia, or the current-day Czech Republic where the thing to do when you’re in Prague is take in a production at the opera house.
Every nation sacrificed its most promising generation in No Man’s Land but for those from the furthest outposts of Empire… well, it just seems to be all the more pointless to modern sensibilities.
Eric Bogle, a Scots-born Australian, explores the pyschological cost to one survivor ‘young Willie McBride’. And it was all the more poignant after I’d seen the statue of the Scots soldier in northern France.
The story goes that the Stax house band were waiting around for the Sun artist and rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley to turn up and developed the song.
And why Green Onions? Well Booker T. Jones self-deprecatingly said it was because green onions were the nastiest thing he could think of and something you could throw away. We never would.
Either way it’s flag-waving, Americana. And even if you don’t know the song you’ll recognise the tune.
Particularly if you’re a fan of Celtic FC who famously play in green and white hoops and who have adapted the song and lyrics into a favourite fans’ song With a Four-leaf Clover on My Breast.
The evergreen Cliff belts this one out from the Seventies.
The Peter Pan of Pop who was born in India, grew up in England, and has had homes in Portugal and Barbados, though he is selling up in Bim (and yes I’m interested).
