I don't think you understand. If Scotland goes independent, they keep Brenda
I'm quite looking forward to Scottish independence actually. I like the idea of England and Wales keeping the £22bn a year we're currently forced to give them.
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'Sight-seeing' is not a good enough reason to visit the UK?
- Thread starter BoyBach
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I'm quite looking forward to Scottish independence actually. I like the idea of England and Wales keeping the £22bn a year we're currently forced to give them.
What America are you living in? I see people of both sides hating the other side, and even within their own side. Thankfully it's the minority but still.
Honestly though, I wonder what the point is of denying those people their visas if people from the US can just buy a ticket on a whim and fly over there thanks to the visa waiver. Or anyone else from Europe who with the exception of the Irish don't speak English and may or may not be fluent in it, but of course are just as allowed in.
After a little bit of driving around in Niagara Falls (NY), we realized why he got suspicious.
I suspect that anyone that says "shopping" instead of "sightseeing" as their reason for visiting a country would be welcomed much more warmly. After all, shopping is good for the local economy and helps shore up the tax base, and most governments are all for taking in extra revenue.
The idea that any city, let alone Paris, takes a day and a bit is a reflection of your lack of interest, not anything within Paris itself.
wow. this is a bit surprising imo.
i'll be going across the pond later this year. i guess i'll need a better reason than sight seeing.
i'll be going across the pond later this year. i guess i'll need a better reason than sight seeing.
I don't think you understand. If Scotland goes independent, they keep Brenda
I'm quite looking forward to Scottish independence actually. I like the idea of England and Wales keeping the £22bn a year we're currently forced to give them.
Scotland gaining independence in the days of the EU is practically irrelevant, but it will make them poorer as they won't get as much money from the English. I'm not totally convinced of their viability as a country as they have almost as much land as England but only 5% of the people. If they gain independence I think it'll reduce British power as a whole, but given our latest forage in Iraq that's probably a net positive.
Though they certainly aren't a "repressed minority", pretty much every other possible group is considerably worse treated that the Scots in the UK.
Uh, Scotland is a net contributor to the UK treasury, England is not. Admittedly, it's the oil revenue that makes the difference but if that were to stay in Scotland, it would make a huge difference.
I'm not hot on the oil revenues, but if you assume Dynamicv's figure of Scotland, Wales (and I assume) Northern Ireland getting £22 billion from England. Seeing as Scotland is a lot bigger than Wales and Northern Ireland I'd expect Scotland to get at least 50% of that which is around £11-£12 billion which is coincidentally the same amount of money as England gets from the oil revenues, so the Scots are hardly being conned out of any money at all
.Also the oil will run out in the next 30 years or so, so then Scotland wouldn't then have any income at all from the oil.
Not any more. The estimated £13bn 2006 receipts from North Sea oil stated by Gordon Brown in the 2005 budget was later confirmed by the Treasury as only £10.5bn. This despite the rising price of crude. North Sea oil output is down 35% from its 1999 peak and expect to fall another 10% off that peak by 2010. Basically the large fields are drying up and all the new finds are much smaller.
Scotland's budget is currently dependent on subsidy from the rest of the UK, a situation that would take major economic growth to reverse. If the Scots want independence then fair enough, but they should know it's going to cost them.
Another complication would be continued membership of the EU.
Spain (Basque Country and lesser still Catalonia) and France (Corsica) would be opposed to the break up lest it encourage similar events within their boundaries. At the very least, they would almost certainly place great obstacles towards an independent Scotland's application to join the EU. That means no regional aid, either, for the more depressed areas.
Spain (Basque Country and lesser still Catalonia) and France (Corsica) would be opposed to the break up lest it encourage similar events within their boundaries. At the very least, they would almost certainly place great obstacles towards an independent Scotland's application to join the EU. That means no regional aid, either, for the more depressed areas.
Perhaps, but Scotland is a good bit more Euro-friendly than the UK/England has been. Holyrood's willingness to work with the EU is more akin to Dublin than Westminster.
Or ignorance.
England is great. It's interesting and great. Scotland is wonderful too, but lets not get carried away and say Scotland is worth seeing, while England isn't.
Article said:
That is truly, honestly retarded. Imagine if other countries had the same attitude towards English tourists. After all, what languages do people generally speak in England: English and......chav? ned?
How are you going to get into Japan if you only speak chav?
Spain's primary profitting regions are CA Madrid, Cataluña, and the Basque Country. The regions who would be most hurt would be places like Extremadura or the Castillas, which are funded more by the three aforementioned regions. If Cataluña and the Basque Country broke off (which honestly, wouldn't make a huge social division, given the existing single currency, autonomous education and police systems, autonomous this and that, etc) then it would be left to places like Madrid and maybe to some extent A Coruña and the Islas to bring in money. Industry is building in Valencia but at the moment it wouldn't be enough to offset the loss of Cataluña or the Basque Country.
That's bizarre. I'm so not used to seeing that spelling I actually had to check whether it was right. Even the Castillian speakers in the region spell it Catalunya after how it's spelt in Catalan. It makes complete sense that it would be spelled that way in Castillian though. I just never thought about it.
Aprendo algo nuevo cada dia
Please don't kid yourself with the "regions=good, England=bad" myth with regard to Europe. At the very least remember that Westminster incarnate, Tony Blair, and his very Eurosceptic successor, Gordon Brown, are Scottish and that the Scots have often shaped and run the affairs of the UK over the centuries. This fact is dawning on the more romantically minded Scots as they see that Holyrood is every bit as incompetent and unrepresentative as Westminster. Garbage in, garbage out.
The Anti-EU-As-Superstate mindset is very much entrenched throughout the UK. Some parts of the UK benefit through regional aid and programmes, others suffer. Try asking the Scottish fishermen what they think of the EU fisheries policy, for instance.
All the Spanish speakers in the region would be 90 native born catalanes and would mostly likely spell it catalunya -- except for the fact that until 2006, catalán wasn't recognized by the government as an official language and therefore couldn't be taught in schools, used on official signs etc. Good news, both variations of the spelling sound exactly the same.
Not trying to troll or hate... just find it fascinating that you learned it as catalunya. It doesn't even show up as a word in official Spanish dictionaries. Props to you for knowing the catalán spelling though.
EDIT: Be careful with the word Castilian as well, as it "technically" refers to anyone born in either the castilla la mancha or castilla y león provinces and the dialect of Spanish they speak there. And in this particular case, the catalanes would probably not like you calling them castellanos.
And back to all the Autonomy being sought by everyone. Sure they want more freedoms (like being able to teach in catalán) but succession would never happen because they'd lose too much. It's only hardcore zealots that want complete independence.
And back to the OP, I'm sure UK isn't the only country that does this frequently. Spanish customs hassles anyone 1st, not speaking Spanish and 2nd even more so if you're not from a EU country or the US and 3rd even more so if you're not white. I hate to say it, but its true.
I only learned to speak the language through spending so much time in Catalunya (CataluñaNot trying to troll or hate... just find it fascinating that you learned it as catalunya. It doesn't even show up as a word in official Spanish dictionaries. Props to you for knowing the catalán spelling though.
), so I'm sure my Castellano is peppered with all sorts of little dialectic traits picked up along the way. I'm grateful for the correction
I only learned to speak the language through spending so much time in Catalunya (Cataluña
I figured that had to be the reason.
And dialects are the linguistic spices for languages. You can appreciate it more when you know about them. So once again, props to you.
Ahhh, benefits of supposedly not being on the axis of evil?
But going UK to US you need VISA's biomatric passports, the works.[1]
I guess that ass licking Blair did over the past 10 years just made the US government look down on UK citizens even more.
[1] does that mean all brits are considered a terrorist threat by the US gov??
Come on get real. Even if you're an US citizen and you've don't got your lips on Bush's buttocks you could be considered a terrorist.
It's nothing against the Brits.It's the Hollywood thing - anyone with an English accent is automatically considered to be a mustache-twiddling, bowler-hat-wearing villain.
It's the Hollywood thing - anyone with an English accent is automatically considered to be a mustache-twiddling, bowler-hat-wearing villain.
Am I still a terrorist if I wear my flat cap and courdoury's instead?
Please refer to my previous post...I think being an oil sheik or something helps disregard the "terrorist" label.
They're never going to let me back into the States again if they read this post.
I'm pretty sure Catalan was made official before 2006? The Constitution of 1978 recognises Castilian Spanish as the official language of Spain, but also allows for co-official languages if the autonomous communities so designate them. I'm not sure of the year, but I'm pretty sure Cataluña would have very quickly afforded itself Catalan as a co-official language. Even disregarding that, Spain submited its translations of the European Constitution in Castilian, Galician, Basque, Catalan, and Valencian, the lattermost of which was identical to the penultimate, but only because the constitutions of Cataluña and Islas Baleares called the language Català but of Valencia called it Valencià. That was in 2004.
Anyways, I'm moving to Spain for work in September, and let me tell you, the Consulate General in New Orleans is AWFUL. They hardly ever respond to e-mails, and if you call, the person you need to talk to is always "busy at the moment" so we should call back again later. On top of it, they wanted us to make two separate trips to New Orleans (which is either a 6 hour drive, a $200 dollar 5.5 hour flight, a $600 2.5 hour flight, or a $100 12-hour bus-ride away from me), once to simply drop off my application in person, and once to pick up my visa, in person, which is ridiculous. Not even the US is that Draconian. It got so bad the other people who had been hired in my job got so frustrated that the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencias had to step in on our behalf and get the New Orleans Consulate General to play nicely like the rest of the other Consulates. Thankfully the Consejería de Educación in the Comunidad de Madrid and the MEC have been far more helpful. Now if I can just find my passport so I can actually apply for this visa...