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How to get by in Dutch Dunglish

19th October 202319th October 2023 funtime65

Who even knew but on the back of learning the Netherlands is the best foreign country for English speakers… our guide on how to get by in Dutch Dunglish.

It’s not quite Monty Python’s Hungarian Phrase Book (ask your folks) but it is amusing how der wires get crossed.

Those whose first port of call in Amsterdam is their red-light district (there is so much else) will be tickled by their confusion over solicitation.

If, for example, you take Compare My Move’s advice.

That the Netherlands are the prime destination to relocate to…

Then you might be looking for a job, only know that the Dutch word is solliciteren.

And Dunglish speakers are likely to use it in this context too.

Word up

Can I be trusted on a bike? In Amsterdam

On such linguistic confusions diplomatic incidents can break out.

So that when Winston Churchill met Pieter Sjoers Gerbrands.

The Dutch premier greeted him with a goodbye, a Dutch interchangeable for hello.

To which the waspish Churchill opined “this is the shortest meeting I have ever had”.

And then when the Belgian football federation invited others they were to play in qualification including Scotland.

They got the Scots offside on account of their Dutch-Flemish.

When they spoke of eventueel qualification, meaning potential and not inevitable.

But not this Scot for whom the Low Countries are among my go-to destinations in Europe.

Nordic Anglophiles

While the Netherlands score highest on the Compare My Move list with 95% of the Dutch speaking English.

They are part of a general pattern for Northern Europeans.

Iceland’s expense is something that doesn’t put those people looking to live at one with nature off moving.

With last year the highest on records for those looking to relocate to the Land of Fire and Ice.

Helped no doubt by the 90 per cent English-speaking rate.

Malta, with its rich links with Britain right down to its red telephone boxes, is no stranger to the English tongue with 88% proficiency.

The Nordic countries too are known for their Anglophile ways with Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland all recommended.

That’s der business

Common language: Football fans in Dortmund

And while there are outliers in Slovenia we shouldn’t be surprised that business haven Luxembourg is also comfortable with English.

While good news for football fans going from this island to Germany next year.

Three out of every five Teutons are proficient in English.

Now just to work on how to get by in Dutch Dunglish, or other hybrids.

Ahead of Scotland getting paired with international rivals at next year’s Euros.

Africa, Countries

Holiday Pics on World Photography Day

20th August 202320th August 2023 funtime65

I’ve an advantage over everybody else… I’ve an award-winning snapper to showcase her holiday pics on World Photography Day.

And that makes it all a treat for y’all when we get the piccies out when we get home.

So without further adieu here’s a taster of what fills our albums at home.

And we’ll even throw in a photography vacation offer to tease you.

Portugal’s a picture

And you can keep your Algarve amateur poolside and beach lounger snaps this is one from Aveiro.

A stunning fishing town in Portugal Centro it is known as the Portuguese Venice.

It’s Portugal’s big secret but heck now it’s out thanks to an award-winning writer, and a snapper.

Hamburger and shots

And we did both in the Reeperbahn and further afield and photographic shots and shoots.

We’ll leave our bed pics to your imagination, though actually we have shared those Hamburg city beach bar snaps.

My Fjord Lady

And my Little Mermaid followed us from Kiel in Germany through Copenhagen and up the Norwegian fjords.

And captured it all from aboard her MSC cruise ship and on our land excursions.

Amsterdam dame

And in the City of Tulips, my photographic pal was the prettiest flower.

And when I was motioning towards their famously tall, narrow bars she was capturing the delightful Amsterdam architecture.

No pic like Rome

And with all roads famously leading to Rome it took me some time, until I was 40, to visit La Citta Eterna.

Sadie the Snapper had been here before and was excited to show me the sites, among them the Trevi Fountain.

The superstition is right and I’ve been back and we will be too.

Snap up Morocco

Sahara bumpity: Two Tuareg nomads in the Sahara

While any and all travellers can always do with Travel Department to hold our hands.

TD Active Holidays offers a guided holiday with an array of photographic opportunities.

From the impressive mosques and markets of Marrakech.

To the busy fishing port of Essaouira and the rocky, barren Agafay Desert.

Where you’ll learn to develop your documentary, street and landscape photography skills.

On this holiday, you’ll not only get to experience Moroccan culture through a camera’s lens.

But also through traditional Moroccan food and live music.

As well as an exhilarating camel ride across the dunes… I hope you get my old friend Larsson to hump you along.

You’ll be accompanied on your journey with an additional tutor from the Dublin Photography School.

They’ll provide tutorials, demonstrations and tips to your small group.

So that you get the most out of the images you capture.

This trip departs on 13^th October from €1,099pp.

Including return flights, transfers, four nights’ half-board in a three-star hotel, plus expert guide.

And when you get back your friends will be begging you to share

Asia, Countries, Europe

Tom Cruise’s Fiat de Resistance

17th July 202316th July 2023 funtime65

Have you watched the latest Mission Impossible and Tom Cruise’s Fiat de Resistance… well, I’ve been there.

Trying to kick a Fiat Cinquecento into life.

Does my car look big in this? A Fiat 500 in Cannes

In my case it was Cannes, in Tom’s and alter ego Ethan Hunt’s, the Spanish Steps in Rome.

Where an albeit handcuffed Ethan and Grace faffed with the dashboard.

Before they got the hang of the classic car to clatter down the steps and through the streets of Rome.

Italian batallion

And, obviously, for our delectation past the Colosseum time and time and time again.

Of course, we have to remind ourselves for all Tom’s stunt boastery, this is all just great CGI.

I mean, whoever got through Roman traffic unless on a Vespa or Lambretta.

Or down the Venetian alleyways which for the first time in history were empty!

And all without a guide book compass, and yes you can thank me later.

Which makes you wonder how Ethan and Grace found the Ponte Minich, or Minich Bridge, so easily.

As they both admit in a cheesy moment that it was their first time in the water city.

Surely an omission for any international man of mystery.

An Alpine hand

It would, in truth, be mission impossible for Ethan to have to find the golden key anywhere as random down the back of the couch.

Because that wouldn’t showcase the favourite familiar scenes we know from MI and Bond and others.

With (spoiler alert, though really) the climax plays out in the Austrian Alps.

With Innsbruck as a backdrop for the Melodrama on the Orient Express (naturally).

Although truth be told it’s actually the Kylling Bridge in Norway.

And other pit stops

Amsterdam too is featured, and again it’s popular for movie chases.

Despite busy canals and pathways and despite his derring-do I wouldn’t advise even Ethan to take on the angry Amsterdammer cyclists.

He’s on safer ground, or sand in the deserts of Abu Dhabi.

For the rest of us we can only aspire to Ethan’s feats of incredulity.

But it’s reassuring to know that he too struggles with classic Italian cars.

Of course, he comes through to make it Tom Cruise’s Fiat de Resistance.

While for other international men of mystery it’s a Fiat de Persistence.

Countries, Europe, Flying

Van Gogh Museum at 50

3rd June 20233rd June 2023 funtime65

It’s apt that the Dutch are celebrating the Van Gogh Museum at 50 with sunflowers, it’s blooming marvellous.

Flowers are one of the things the Dutch are known for which is why Vincent and his fellow artists are so darned good at them.

I’m thinking my school art teacher Mr Cairney missed a trick with us budding Scottish artists giving us apples to draw.

Although he probably thought the Scottish national flower, the thistle, might not have been the most aesthetic.

Flowers of Amsterdam

Flowers are at the heart of the Dutch story with tulips the must-have status symbol of the 17th century.

The rarest of which was as expensive as a Dutch townhouse.

With the demand in the bulb causing a run which led to the world’s first financial bubble.

All of which you can learn more about at the Tulip Museum in Amsterdam and check out Breughel’s observations.

And how tulips saved the Dutch during the last winter of the Second World War.

Vincent Sun Gogh

Whether Van Gogh was giving in allowing others to paint the Dutch national flower (unlikely) we’ll never know.

But he never painted one tulip in his lifetime although there is one named for him, a reddish-brown one that reaches 50-60cms.

Perhaps though he’d realised that sunflowers were more his thing.

They’re certainly the Dutch Royal Family’s.

With Queen Juliana symbolically presented with a sunflower at the museum’s opening back in 1973.

And Princess Beatrix the same, although a new flower obvs, this week at the Museumplein.

Drone rangers

Earlier in the day, employees distributed tens of thousands of sunflowers, transforming the Museumplein into a sea of flowers.

As a gift to the city of Amsterdam, a drone display took place at 11pm.

The Sunflowers represented generosity to Van Gogh and he painted three in the Yellow House in Arles.

And hung two in the guest room when Paul Gauguin came to stay.

One of which the Frenchman asked if he could have which may have sparked the row which saw Vincent hack his ear off.

Play to the gallery

We’ll never know but we do know he painted two more and we’re just grateful one hangs in the Van Gogh Museum.

Alongside the Potato Eaters, Bedroom in Arles and Almond Blossoms among others, Starry Night is at the MOMA in New York.

The Van Gogh Museum is indeed the gift that keeps on giving as you explore the Pictures of Amsterdam.

So as we celebrate the Van Gogh Museum at 50 we’ll be sure to add again to there 53 million who have already been through its doors.

And we’ll be flying into Schiphol, one of our fave airports, with Dutch airline carrier KLM… check out site for best offers.

And maybe pushing the boat out to stay at George and Amal’s fave Dutch hotel, the Dylan.

Countries, Europe

Gouda you get to Cheesetown?

28th April 202328th April 2023 funtime65

Gouda you get to Cheesetown? Well, firstly, know where you’re going and how you get there.

And that there is a difference between Gouda and Edam.

Not just that they’re different cheeses, and they’re both made from sweet curd.

But that Edam has a red skin on it and Gouda a yellow one.

Oh, and Edam is north of Amsterdam and Gouda south.

My own little Sat-Nav

You see that’s the thing about directions when you’re abroad, you can go around in circles until you arrive back at the start point.

My own little Sat-Nav prides herself, as the daughter of a topographer, in taking charge of directions when we’re abroad.

And in most part she has got us there.

When I didn’t even know where there was.

Apart, of course, on our first trip together abroad when we decided to cycle to Edam.

And Herself, a head full of first love, suggested we take a turn in the road.

Two hours later, and in the icy cold of a Dutch November night, we were back where we started.

Crepe pep

We eventually did make it into Amsterdam.

And not even a warming crepe and hot chocolate restored feeling to my cramped legs.

And so the take-away from all of this is that map out your route…

Or put yourself into the hands of professionals.

Star of the canal

Such as boating experts Emerald Star who will set you on the right course.

With the beautiful thing about canal breaks is that there’s no tricky options…

You just set your boat off in front of you and go.

Emerald Star are offering a return cruise from Vinkeveen, a popular summer holiday spot great for water sports, swimming and lake-side dining.

Cruisin’

Amsterdam is less than five cruising hours to the north.

So guests can explore the city before returning to Vinkeveen.

Or continue their journey through green pastures and small fishing villages, to explore more of Holland.

To the southeast of Vinkeveen, the trendy university city of Utrecht is reachable in just four hours.

While the cheese-making towns of Gouda and Edam (see we told you so), the famous Keukenhof Flowerpark at Lisse and the windmills at Zaanse Schans are all within two to four days of cruising from Vinkeveen.

Ambitious holidaymakers can cruise as far as Hindelhoopen.

It’s best know for its art and its traditional dress and lies north of Amsterdam in the Friesland region.

No experience necessary

A seven-night, self-catered stay on board a Elegance, which sleeps up to six people, departing 24 May, starting and ending in Vinkeveen.

Costs €2,809 per boat, €468 pp (down from €3,749 saving €940 – saving 25%). No boating license or experience necessary.

Emerald Star (071 962 7633 or visit www.emeraldstar.ie )

And so you’ll never need to ask Gouda you get to Cheesetown?

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

Dragging up the statue debate

9th April 20239th April 2023 funtime65

News that 70,000 fans have signed a petition to have an erection of Paul O’Grady (he’d appreciate that) put up in his hometown Birkenhead sees us dragging up the statue debate again.

Whether the proposed O’Grady statue over the Mersey from Liverpool would be of pets’ pal Paul with a beloved pooch.

Or his beloved alter ego, Lily Savage, a celebration of this towering figure would be most welcome.

We make no apologies for dredging up this contentious subject again because simply put statues are a fixture of every tourist’s city break trip.

And it is our mission to redress the balance.

By putting up more cultural figures on pedestals to match, replace or overtake the mystery military statues that look down on us.

Who’s a hero?

A horse, a horse: Stonewall Jackson at Manassas

Statues was all the talk in of all places Barbados a few years ago.

When the Ski Club of Virginia made their annual pilgrimage down to the Caribbean.

And our new friends from the Deep South were alerting us to the gathering storm.

Over the statues of the Confederate leaders proliferating there.

Which I saw for myself when I went out to Virginia.

And visited Manassas, site of the first fighting in the Civil War, and home to Stonewall Jackson.

And alas the fighting was to resume not long after on the streets again.

I was fortunate to illicit the opinions of those on both sides of the divide through further adventures in the Deep South.

And meet the likes of Dr Martin Luther King and his unfinished statue in Washington DC.

And Fannie Lou Hamer, the little big woman who got tired of being tired in Mississippi.

The extraordinary ordinary

In the name of dog: Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh

Of course for every celebrated soldier, conceited king or quaffed queen there are real heroes and heroines who have rightly been placed in marble and stone.

Such as Anne Frank in Amsterdam, Workers’ champion Jim Larkin in Dublin or devoted doggie Greyfriars Bobby in Edinburgh.

Ah yes, you’ll see the message we’re sending out here, more children, women, working-class heroes and animals.

Gay giants

And LGBTQ+ champions and more drag queens.

Our trawl of statues turns up unexpectedly and disappointingly precious few of either.

Again our beloved Ireland leads the way somewhat and in spite of its repressive Catholic past.

With the louche and lounging statue of Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square.

While he is lauded and lipsticked in his gravestone in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, his last resting place.

Where Wilde led, the likes of Harvey Milk, the ‘Mayor of Castro Street’ in San Francisco.

Whose bust smiles at us from its plinth in City Hall, followed.

And Greenwich Village in New York, spiritual home for the Gay Liberation Movement, made a statement with a bust to Marsha P Johnson.

All of which makes the case for more statues which truly represent the people who live among them and represent them.

Redressing the balance

Alas, here in the UK as in most places representation is in short supply.

With only Alan Turing, the decoder who helped defeat Hitler, represented long after he was vilified and criminalised for his homosexuality.

So let’s hear it for the real heroes and heroines of our society.

Those we can identify with and look up to.

And that’s who I want to be looking at it on my city breaks.

And why I’m dragging up the statue debate again.

Europe

Give activists the Van Gogh brush-off

16th October 20221st November 2022 funtime65

Is nothing sacred, and shouldn’t all who want to construct rather than destruct give activists the Van Gogh brush-off?

Just how Vincent would have reacted to the two climate activists who threw a tin of soup at his oil painting Sunflowers in London is anybody’s guess.

But we suspect that the fiery redhead would have gone mental at the fundamentalists and rightly so.

Thankfully for all, the painting is protected by a shield of glass.

Cultural vandalism

The right fun with flowers: Sunflowers all around

But such is his brilliance that if you get up close and personal to his paintings you can see…

Just how thick oils were which he feverishly applied to his paintings.

My first reaction to the cultural vandalism of their attack was a Van Goghian rage at these activists’ abuse of a civilian’s right to protest.

And how their selective destruction of our art would not have been out of place in the fascist Third Reich or Mussolini’s Italy.

Not that these philistines deserve an answer but Vincent Van Gogh had a love and insight for nature that few of us can reach.

And far fewer still can express.

Some painting notes

Flower power: Vin’s all about the flowers

And here the good people of the National Gallery lend us their expertise with some artistic notes.

The sunflower is mine’, Van Gogh is once said to have declared, and it does speak to him (both metaphorically and perhaps in his delirium).

The different stages in the sunflower’s life cycle shown here, from young bud through to maturity and eventual decay, follow in the vanitas tradition of Dutch seventeenth-century flower paintings (who knew?)

And that emphasises the transient nature of human actions.

The sunflowers were perhaps also intended to be a symbol of friendship and a celebration of the beauty and vitality of nature.

And he had five of them on display across the world.

Although lucky chap that he was Paul Gauguin got to see them all after Vincent had painted them for him for his arrival in his house at Arles.

At your attendance

In the picture: And it’s Rembrandt in Amsterdam

Spare a thought and a minute here too for the staff at the National Gallery in London who care for the exhibits better than their own children.

Because these stunts push us further down the road to bulky guards at our art galleries rather than helpful attendants.

And should that come then the essence, the karma of the spaces, the floors and rooms of an art gallery will be compromised.

The best place to appreciate Van Gogh’s art is at his museum in Amsterdam.

And hang with the Bedroom at Arles, The Potato Eaters The Self-Portrait with Grey Fedora, Irises and Wheatfield with a reaper.

There are many great art cities but Amsterdam allows you to be part of the picture as you can see with another Dutch art great Rembrandt and his living Night Watch.

And the best way to get around is at with the IAmsterdam card… and the best place to stay the Dylan Hotel, where George and Amal go.

Play to the gallery

We didn’t see that: No, not in the picture but in one of The Scary One’s pics

A print of which has hung in our spare room across a bunch of houses we have lived in in Britain and Ireland.

Where there have been clumsy removals and teens’ house parties.

But while there have been damages and breakages we have always treated our art and our prints.

Which we all should in our own homes and in our art galleries.

While we give the activists the Van Gogh brush-off.

Culture, Europe

They’re having a laaf in the Netherlands

22nd June 202222nd June 2022 funtime65

It’s the best theme park you didn’t know you knew about… they’re having a laaf in the Netherlands.

Efteling is the happiest place on Dutch Earth particularly this year, its 70th birthday.

How do I know? Well, my laaf pals, Robert, Lillian, Fiachra and Morne told me.

My fun four have been with us since Wicklow days.

When we took them in from their previous home in the National Garden Exhibition Centre in Kilquade.

Let’s laaf together

The laafs are the naughty kids in the garden ornaments’ class with their menacing, mirthful faces.

The other best place in the world to see them rather than our back garden is Efteling.

And that’s an hour 45 minutes from amazing Amsterdam.

And just over an hour by train (they work there and are cheap) from Rotterdam or Eindhoven.

Return Eurostar tickets from London St Pancras International to Amsterdam Centraal are for £277pp (based on departing 12-14 July).

Fairytale forest

At the heart of the park is the Fairytale Park inspired by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault.

Where you’ll meet Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Pinnochio.

And for the rollercoaster junkie in you, and I have itchy feet having missed out on this year’s IPW American Travel Fair in Orlando…

There is the dive-coaster Baron 1898 which plunges 37.5m into a mineshaft.

The grass is greener

My green-fingered gal will lap up Efteling’s beautiful gardens.

Even more so as they can be seen via steam train or boat.

While there’s something special this year, Alice in Wonderland, for Daddy’s Little Girl (OK, she’s 23).

Where she will get to play an active role in the mad birthday tea party, hosted by the Mad Hatter and March Hare.

The temporary fairytale will be open until October.

Deal us in

Bloomin’ wonderful: Lilian in the garden

A two-night stay for a family of four at Efteling Village Loonsche Land in a six-person themed room priced from £788 based on arriving 12 July.

The price includes breakfast and three days of unlimited access to Efteling Park located 15 minutes away from the village.

They’re having a laaf in the Netherlands. Come and join them.

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

Anne Frank’s birthday gift and other diaries

12th June 202212th June 2022 funtime65

And mine’s started ‘Woke up this morning’ (the Bluesman in me), not nearly as observant as Anne Frank’s birthday gift and other diaries.

Eighty years have passed since Otto Frank gave Anne a diary for her 13th birthday in Amsterdam… and the rest is history.

And for the rest of history we have to rely on diarists, and today’s chroniclers, your humble bloggers.

We have, all my favourite Bandanini and Bandanettes, shared in wonderful odysseys, and with Bandanaman at the tiller, that’s obviously meant detours.

A Homer run

Homer’s Iliad: And isn’t the journey home always better when you’re diverted to exotic destinations?

We think Odysseus though was just using my excuse for His Scary One that it was a working assignment.

To linger longer in the islands of Attica Region such as Kythera…. or Corfu where we honeymooned and Odysseus dallianced.

Byron Alpshausen

Mad, bad, adventurous to know: Byron Country, Switzerland

Lord Byron’s Alpine Journal: And when Byron was exiled from England for getting ‘too close to his family’ where did he go?

To heaven’s ceiling in Interlaken, Switzerland, of course.

And where you can dine at the very hotel, the Hotel Interlaken, the Bad Boy of the Romantics quaffed wine. And this Swiss swisher too.

Where Twain shall meet

Mark Twain, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court: And as prolific a traveller as Connecticut’s Samuel Clemens was this was his most epic journey.

Across 14 centuries and an ocean.

Twain is for many the Father of Modern Travel Writing.

And his home was tantalisingly up the road on my latest trip to New England.

What the Dickens?

Way to go, Joe: With hotel boss Joe at the Hotel Envoy, Boston

Charles Dickens’ American Notes, Pictures from Italy: The Great Victorian Age author of course stripped bare the England of his days.

But his curiosity and enthusiasm to explore the foibles of human nature stretched way beyond that… to America and Italy.

Which just so happen to be two of my favourite countries anywhere in the world.

Dickens was particularly impressed with Boston (good judge) of which he said: ‘Boston is what I would like the whole of the United States to be.’

But he seemed to have a conflicted view of Rome, observing on first viewing that it reminded him of London (no harm there).

But then being captivated by the Colosseum and just as quickly let down by the smallness of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. What the Dickens!

Fits the Bill

Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: And, of course, we could pick from any of his vast collection of travel diaries/books.

But we’ll plump for his trek along the Appalachian Trail, probably because we’re jealous.

I know I could persuade the Boss to allow me the five and a half months to walk the 2,100 miles from Maine down to Georgia.

And that’s 14 states, and five states I’ve still to tick off.

Counties to Synge about

My Life’s Traveller: Sadie in Greystones, Co. Wicklow

JM Synge, Travels in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara: And full disclosure here, mine have been more in Wicklow.

Although I was captivated by Kerry and Connemara will always be the land of my childhood holidays.

Described as capturing ‘the embers of a dying culture’ and accompanied with drawings by Jack B. Yeats it’s a reminder…

That you can always come home to Ireland.

For today though we share Anne Frank’s birthday gift and other diaries and ask whose are your favourite diaries?

Asia, Countries, Culture, Europe

Turkiye yeah

3rd June 20223rd June 2022 funtime65

And because I’ve been teased all my life about my name and because I love Turks today I’m saying Turkiye yeah.

The Turks have applied to the UN to have the name of their country accepted as Turkiye, pronounced Turkee yeah.

And not Turkey as in the name of our favourite Christmas bird.

Or in its modern parlance, meaning a flop.

And I stand guilty of benefiting through riffing any number of headlines as a Travel editor.

The name change sounds reasonable.

And a regular request to the UN from countries, according to Stephane Dujarric.

What’s in a name?

Look at the head on that: Zatec, Czechia

The Czech Republic was born and Czechoslovakia laid to rest when Slovakia went their own way.

Though what happened to the O’s in the divide we never did learn.

The Czechs found too that it soon became long-winded for branding and asked the UN for the change to Czechia (hard k for ch).

And in doing so they are following the precedent of the French who use France instead of their official Samedi name ‘The French Republic’.

Dutch of class

Now lazy titling becomes wearisome to those of us who have become victims of the bigger country syndrome.

And for those of a Scots, and Welsh, variety it is an occupational hazard to put up with being called English the further we travel.

Similarly in the Netherlands where the short hand of Holland had been used when that should only apply to the north and south of the country.

In 2020 while the rest of us were preoccupied by Covid the Dutch ditched the nickname Holland.

Whatever you call it, and since being alerted to the sensitivities while there for the first time 30 years ago, it’s still Edam good country.

North stars

Fly the flag: North Macedonia football fans

Now putting your place on the compass at the top of your name is always a good idea to differentiate yourself.

And we see it in South Sudan and also in North Macedonia, the latter to placate the Greeks where there is a region, Macedonia.

Throughout the post-imperialist world countries have reclaimed their countries and changed their names to their native tongue.

Shout of Africa

And so Swaziland became Eswatini, meaning ‘land of the Swazis’ in their language in 2018, the 50th anniversary of independence from the British throne.

Yes, blink and you can miss the changes and the Port Elizabeth I knew in South Africa’s Eastern Cape has become the Xhosa-clicking Gqeberha… as it should.

In these Celtic countries in which we live (Scotland, Wales, Ireland) there has been a move too to Gaelicise our towns and villages.

Gael force

And during Scotland’s march to freedom, the Gaelic name for Scotland, Alba has raised to prominence.

So here’s to all countries who reclaim their birthright, to Turkiye yeah… and Alba.

Or the Republic of Scotland as we’ll get back to striving for.

Just as soon as this forelock-tugging and curtsying deception, the Platinum Jubilee, is out of the way.