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Post by Moose on Apr 30, 2016 22:41:59 GMT
Oh Antti and I went there Was a lovely place. I'd recommend Beamish as well although it's not wall related.
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Post by Moose on Apr 30, 2016 22:42:37 GMT
Oh and Vindalanda (spelling probably wrong). That's mostly outdoor and it was pissing it down when Antti and I went there so we did not see as much of it as I'd have liked but what we did see was good.
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Post by raspberrybullets on Apr 30, 2016 23:39:46 GMT
Ronald says the Imperial War Museum in London has a V1 and a V2 which he thought was quite interesting to see. He thinks they had a spitfire but wasn't easy to see.
He also says he's heard of Biggin Hill which is in Kent he thinks - but hasn't been there. It was a sector station during the Battle of Britain but he's not sure if there are planes or not.
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Post by whollygoats on May 1, 2016 0:55:45 GMT
There's a RAF Museum in London....and one in Cosford. Then there is a Midlands Air Museum at the Coventry Airport, mostly jet-age displays. But most intriguing is the Shuttleworth Collection, near Biggleswade, in Bedforshire. I need to know more.
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Post by ceptimus on May 2, 2016 23:24:28 GMT
Cosford has the TSR2. Loads of other planes too, of course. Museum admission is free. The model show held on the adjacent airfield is July 16-17 this year and is usually very good.
The Shuttleworth collection is notable for its really early planes - if you're lucky enough to be there when it's calm, then you may see some of them flown.
Coventry is a small collection of aircraft mainly outdoors. They had an English Electric Lightning when I was last there that you could get really close to. You used to be able to book a ride in an old DC3 at the airfield there - I don't know if that service is still available.
Coventry probably isn't worth a visit just for the aircraft, but the city itself is worth seeing and it has a really good motor museum: as well as hundreds of cars, bikes, buses, trucks it has the current and previous world land speed record cars on display.
Isle of Man is ridiculously busy during the TT motorbike races. The motorbike racing is a fantastic spectacle if you have any interest - but you probably can't get accommodation during the races unless you book well in advance. The main races are one week in June - there are some less-busy but still spectacular ones one week in August.
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Post by Sarah W. on May 3, 2016 15:28:37 GMT
That sounds worth going to just for the name. (My sister and I went to village near Oxford entirely because it was called Ducklington.)
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Post by JoeP on May 3, 2016 16:52:55 GMT
On that basis, would you visit Giggleswick? Cockfosters? Mousehole?
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Post by Sarah W. on May 3, 2016 19:53:50 GMT
Giggleswick is very tempting.
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Post by whollygoats on May 3, 2016 20:32:58 GMT
Just an hour plus north of here, we have 'Humptulips'. But I agree, Giggleswick is worth the attempt of a stop.
I have been to 'Mousehole'...or, at least one of them; the one in Cornwall, on the waterfront near Penzance.
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Post by Sarah W. on May 3, 2016 20:54:10 GMT
There's also a Wigglesworth near Giggleswick. It just keeps getting better. :-)
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Post by whollygoats on May 3, 2016 20:59:20 GMT
That sounds worth going to just for the name. (My sister and I went to village near Oxford entirely because it was called Ducklington.) Well, I am planning on going to Duxford, but not because I'm puzzled as to why ducks might want to 'ford' any body of water. Or, is it not pronounced that way?
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Post by tangent on May 3, 2016 22:36:05 GMT
Or, is it not pronounced that way? Yes.
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Post by whollygoats on May 6, 2016 15:51:09 GMT
Or, is it not pronounced that way? Yes. So, how is it pronounced?
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Post by tangent on May 6, 2016 18:03:30 GMT
It's pronounced ducks'-fudd.
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Post by whollygoats on May 6, 2016 20:42:06 GMT
It's pronounced ducks'-fudd. Heh...and I thought it might be the first syllable I was misprouncing. It is 'ducks', rather than 'dooks'. I was preparing for a mental picture of a herd of high-born aristocratic twits (dukes) being led to cross the river. Americans would most likely pronounce the second syllable as 'furd'. Instead, the Brits lose the 'r' completely. Rather Bostonian...parked car in Harvard yard, an' all. Are 'r' letters in British placenames less pronounced than the 'w' letters?
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Post by tangent on May 6, 2016 22:28:19 GMT
It depends on the position of the letter and local custom. The W and R in Warwickshire are both pronounced just once. Wa'-rick-shuh.
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Post by whollygoats on May 6, 2016 23:20:43 GMT
It depends on the position of the letter and local custom. The W and R in Warwickshire are both pronounced just once. Wa'-rick-shuh. I noticed that most (not all!) of the 'wick' placenames became icky by losing the pronunciation of the 'w' entirely. Keswick is a good example, is 'Kez-ick'. Is it that 'w' stock embedded within English placenames are stifled?
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Post by ceptimus on May 7, 2016 9:15:06 GMT
It depends on the regional dialect too. People in Lancashire with a strong accent sound the W in words like 'whole'. I think this was normal in ancient Britain (hence the spelling) but has disappeared now in most regions.
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Post by whollygoats on Jun 11, 2016 1:01:07 GMT
It depends on the regional dialect too. People in Lancashire with a strong accent sound the W in words like 'whole'. I think this was normal in ancient Britain (hence the spelling) but has disappeared now in most regions. Whoa...really? And Lancashire is immediately adjacent, to the south and east, of Cumbria, right?
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Post by ceptimus on Jun 11, 2016 17:33:39 GMT
Yup. Watch this YouTube video of Fred Dibnah - a steeplejack from Bolton, Lancashire. At about 0:45 he says, "The whole thing only cost fourteen thousand quid." youtu.be/3R3-YwDZrzgIf you enjoy Fred's philosophising (and who wouldn't) then I recommend you watch all the other videos of him on YouTube you'll find linked from this one. The early ones where he's mostly demolishing chimneys and building his steam traction engine are the best ones, in my opinon. Edit: I looked for another video where he says, "whole", and found this one - "the whole stack of ladders" at about 5:45, and then he says 'whole' about another five times before the end of parts 1 and 2.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 12, 2016 5:49:00 GMT
Well, Swimmer surprised me. She thinks she might be winging off to Barcelona come September.
We had vaguely planned on doing a Europe trip to the UK, but she went off on a wild hare about immersion Spanish language training....in Barcelona.
This is so she can get an Spanish immersion experience in before going off to volunteer in Costa Rica. I tried to tell her that Spanish learned in Spain, particularly in Barcelona, of all places, is not anything like the Spanish which is spoken in Costa Rica...but that doesn't matter. It's some kind of gambit to write off the cost of the travel on her taxes. She says she may fly to Spain in September for two weeks of immersion. Then, she could meet me in Britain.
It seems like an awfully short timeline, but ticket prices seem to be down. Don't get expectations up, because these 'plans' have a tendency to fall apart. But, we will have the lodger, Dave, in place by the end of July. The plan has been to move about the globe when we retired. I am now fully retired and on the mend. She is partially retired.
So, if she flies to Spain, and I was planning on flying to Washington about the same time, to visit the Udvar-Hazy Museum, and instead of flying home from there, I could continue on to the UK. I would head north to the Orkneys and get my visit to Skara Brae in and start moving south. When she'd completed her immersion, then she'd train to the UK to meet up with me. We haven't set a meeting point yet, but of what I want to see, she wants to see Wales, so either Bristol or Chester seem to be good bets.
So, I may be winging to Britain, come September.
I guess I'd better start brushing up on my British...adding in all those unnecessary 'u' letters.
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Post by Kye on Jul 12, 2016 11:41:25 GMT
Well, you can do an immersion in Canada for that, WG. We have the extra u's also!
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Post by JoeP on Jul 13, 2016 9:30:15 GMT
I say, simply splendid, what!
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 14, 2016 19:56:52 GMT
You can relax.
I bowed out of that one. I told Swimmer I wasn't ready to fly to Europe in September. I'm still in 'recovery', even though I'm doing well and I'm just not prepared to bounce around the UK in expectation of meeting up. She's going with another mature lady and they're doing the Spanish immersion together. I told her to spend time with her friend and do some touring on her own from Barcelona. Southern France and northern Italy beckon to her. I pointed out that southern Spain, Portugal, and Morocco were within easy reach, too.
So, I'm staying put (sort of) while she wanders. She needs to get it out of her system.
Me? First I booked a long weekend in Everett, Washington (just north of Seattle) to take in the Flying Heritage Collection SkyFair event on July 30.
Then, I booked three days at the end of September to fly in to Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, just so I can visit the new Udvar-Hazy Museum of the Smithsonian's Air & Space collection.
Now, I can dedicate some quality planning to hit the Ukky shores come late spring of 2017.
I trust I shall not need to seek asylum.
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Post by JoeP on Jul 14, 2016 20:52:57 GMT
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Post by Kye on Jul 14, 2016 22:04:32 GMT
One of my best friends was born in the States to Canadian parents who were living there while her dad was teaching at a University there. They only lived there for a few months before moving to another country then finally back to Canada.She has never worked in the States and never lived there except for the few months after her birth.
The US government harassed her for years to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars in "back taxes". It was a nightmare --the pit bulls at the IRS were merciless. My friend and her husband are not wealthy or even well off. They almost lost their house over this.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 14, 2016 22:07:57 GMT
Well...I needn't renounce any citizenship, as long as I can get asylum.
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Post by whollygoats on Jul 14, 2016 22:09:58 GMT
One of my best friends was born in the States to Canadian parents who were living there while her dad was teaching at a University there. They only lived there for a few months before moving to another country then finally back to Canada.She has never worked in the States and never lived there except for the few months after her birth. The US government harassed her for years to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars in "back taxes". It was a nightmare --the pit bulls at the IRS were merciless. My friend and her husband are not wealthy or even well off. They almost lost their house over this. The IRS is attempting to collect non-taxes from a non-citizen living outside the United States? I would think that they had better targets to correct than that...like about every corporation in the country. As an American citizen and taxpayer, I'm outraged that so much of our public resources would be wasted in such a fruitless and counter-productive effort. I'd be happy to lodge complaints with my representative in the US House, and both of my Senators, about such an egregious wasted diversion of public funds. Honestly. PM me the details.
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Post by Kye on Jul 14, 2016 22:15:56 GMT
You'd think.... I guess some people are seem to be easy pickin's. Not my friend though --she fought tooth and nail. She had to pay but not as much as they were demanding.
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Post by JoeP on Jul 14, 2016 22:25:13 GMT
The IRS is attempting to collect non-taxes from a non-citizen living outside the United States? A citizen - deemed to be a citizen without her knowledge. The article I linked gives more background.
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