Mexico vs. Great Britain

Sam Hughes likes to write and post Things of Interest. Of interest to me today is The Great British Venn Diagram. This handy diagram helps to clarify (for those who seem to have trouble keeping it straight) the difference between England, Great Britain, the British Isles and the United Kingdom.

Via Catholicgauze, who has created his own diagram to explain Mexico versus Mexico versus Mexico

#510

Postcards Take a Vacation

Last week I lamented the lack of map postcards, and postcards in general while on vacation in North Carolina. On our last day on the beach, we decided to try parasailing. After a long drive around the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, we arrived at Atlantic Beach in time to find out that all parasail flights had been canceled due to thunderstorms. So we toured historic Fort Macon instead.

And there, in the park gift shop, I found two map postcards!



Both of these cards depict the Outer Banks of the North Carolina coast, a portion of NC that I have never actually visited, but that has never stopped this map postcards collector before.

The second postcard records the many shipwrecks of the area. An interesting thing I learned at Fort Macon was that just a couple years after the state of North Carolina had restored the Fort as part of a State Park, the U.S. Army re-armed the fort as part of the coastal defences in 1942. Several of those ships on the card were sunk by German U-Boats.

After returning home from this vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to find this fine postcard to add to my collection. I've never been to Scotland either.

Thanks Allison!

Naturally, when you return home from a week's vacation, you need to go grocery shopping. Another surprise! The grocery store has an Ohio postcard that I haven't seen before. w00t!

So, I guess I can call this a successful postcard vacation after all.

Scotland Towed

"Every June, Scotland is towed 1000 miles south so it can have a summer. Only 10% of people in Scotland know this."

It's true! Would your Uncle Cartophiliac lie to you?



From Great Lies to Tell Kids by Andy Riley; the somewhat deranged, but very funny author of The Book of Bunny Suicides.

Who doesn't enjoy telling small "tall tales" to kids?... you know, just to mess with their mind...

Other good lies from the book:

"In Denmark, they use bacon as banknotes."

"There used to be a ship in that bottle but it sank."

"Most birds wear parachutes in case they suddenly forget how to fly."