Our world is ever changing but not according to the cork map I’ve been sent.
OIt has taken me, in truth, the best part of a week to realise that this world at my fingertips was the one of my schooldays.
When Britain was still in denial about the loss of Empire.
Pin sharp
It was only after I’d stuck the pins in (I’d expected them to include them as in the picture) that I’d realised.
I’d covered Western Europe in red, blue and a spot of Irish green.
And adapted as your sticky pins only seem to come in the primary colours.
Red, white and blue
So you end up pinning the Oranje Netherlands in red which to be fair is one-third of their flag.
And Italia in verde green the same, though Il Bel Paese is more associated with sporting azzurro.
Some countries have spent generations fighting not to go red so it seemed wrong to pin Germany red, but hey ho.
Red, of course, means different things, in different places and America and the Arab World proudly flashes red.
We will pin them on the beaches
Of course it’s not just travel-longing Travel Editors who pin stickers to an atlas.
And world leaders are probably doing the same as we speak.
I’ve seen it too first hand at Winston Churchill’s War Rooms in Whitehall in London.
Now I’m thinking that I must have been delivered one of Winnie’s maps when I turned my attentions to Asia.
It can’t be a Mumbai mix
And saw that my mapmakers are still clinging to old British names of Bombay (Mumbai) and Peking (Beijing).
Before scanning back to Ireland to check that the names were correct.
It truly would not have surprised me if their cartographers were working to a 20th Century template.
I should have known when they insisted that my purchase was for a Queenstown map of the world.
Rather than a Cork one.
Our world is changing for sure, it’s just some are stuck in the past.
