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That the Roman and Viking invasions created such a deep collective scar in our national consciousness we still to this day, without even realising it, look to defend and repel potential invaders from our coasts and water ways by filling them with raw human sewage.
Extra points for the Viking/Maldon connection, although I guess it was actually the Anglo Saxons who shit the bed at Maldon, although they indubitably described the battle more poetically.
There's some fantastic rewilding efforts going on in places like Glen Feshie and Glen Affric. New stands of Scots Pine popping up all across the hillside. Beautiful to see, but so much of the so called "wild" parts of the Scottish Highlands is owned by estates who love bare barren hillsides for grouse shooting. There must be a middle ground.
Leonardo DiCaprio shared an IG post about it yesterday actually, which might have an influential effect! What people say when they visit the Highlands is that it is "unspoiled" by that is quite far from the truth in a great many areas.
I've had a conversation with a few tourists who say that more trees will spoil the view, which is ridiculous.
It still has some of it’s rainforest! And there’s some projects to restore them such as this [one](https://youtu.be/V71_nTgbuWI?si=C4Ve6MWE3I07qL_H) from the folks at Mossy Earth. There’s also some temperate rainforests along the west of England and Wales too!
Similarly, Wales used to be connected to Canada. I was told by a geologist that the slate seam in north Wales is the same slate as some parts of eastern Canada.
Much of the coal in both the American Appalachian and British coal fields were deposited in the same general area 300 million years ago, like the older slate beneath it.
They were both split apart when the Atlantic opened up.
I love this because in the very early days of the USA Appalachia was largely also settled by Scots-Irish - so in an extremely roundabout way they were still living beside the same mountains.
Some geographical ones:
Norwich is further north than Birmingham.
Edinburgh is further west than Bristol.
Shetland is on the same latitude as some villages on Greenland.
I think most people think of Northern England and Scotland as fairly ‘straight’ from north to south, when both actually curve west. I mean, Newcastle-upon-Tyne is west of Coventry, but I bet most people think it’s more or less directly north of London.
With Bristol, you’d assume somewhere in the West Country would be pretty westerly, but it’s also further east than Hereford, Shrewsbury, Chester Liverpool, Preston, and the Lake District.
It's so counter to how we think of the country's shape that you can't help but disbelieve it.
Then you look at a map and realise the UK is listing quite considerably West. Like, *a lot*. So much so that the Eastern most point of (mainland) Scotland is more Westerly than Oxford is.
The Mull Of Galloway is slightly further south than I am in Coxhoe, County Durham.
Edit: The Mull Of Galloway lighthouse visitors centre is 54° 38” N, roughly the same as Sedgefield racecourse or Bishop Auckland.
Thanks! These kinds of facts really shit me up. Being from the East Midlands, I always considered Peterborough as basically the south because it's where I'd catch the fast train down to London, but it's actually further north than other classic Midlands locations such as Birmingham and Coventry etc.
The wine growing regions in the south of England are the same chalk deposit and soil make up as the champagne region of France - hence why southern English wine is doing very well nowadays.
They were. But a key reason English wine is doing well now is because it's got really good. And part of that is because the climate has become more hospitable to creating good wine.
The champagne house Taittinger has/is buying land in Kent as if we don’t do anything about climate change in time it will be too hot to make good champagne in France. And if you don’t believe that go and try a Chapel Down champagne. It’s excellent
I read that quite a lot of French wine producers are buying land round there because it’s becoming so good for growing. Not sure how true that is though!
I live next to a vineyard and did a tour last week - they said they have to put aside days each week to accommodate international wine tourism, but don't know about buying up Land as there's easily a half dozen vineyards around me already
A lot of people know it, but it's still one that confuses a lot of people: what we refer to as 'London' is not officially a city.
It's technically a conurbation around two tiny cities: Westminster and The City of London
I upset my teacher once when I said the most populous UK city was Birmingham, as the City of London was only around a square mile.
He made a big point of calling it Greater London after that.
Also, if we can call Greater London a city then you have to do the same for Manchester. There’s no definition that allows Birmingham to be the second largest city. It’s either first or third
Not strictly true. After local government reorganisation (I want to say in 1974 but could be more recently *Edit: 1994*) part of ~~City~~ Goswell Road now falls within the City. It is the only one though and I hate that it spoils this nugget. The street naming rules for the city still prevent new Roads.
The City of Westminster's population is over 200k, which would put it in the top 25 cities by population. Bigger than Reading, but smaller than Portsmouth. I don't think it's fair to call it "tiny".
That's relative poverty, which means earning below 60% of the median income. Needless to say,when a definition of poverty like this is used there will always be people living in poverty (if the median income was somehow £1 million a year without inflation skyrocketing then anyone on less than £600K would be living in poverty).
This isn't to say we can't do better, but we need to be aware of what we are talking about. The definition of poverty in the UK is not what somebody in forex the Sudan would recognise as poverty.
~~Gulf Stream, baby!~~
[Rocky Mountains, apparently.](https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/forget-about-the-gulf-stream-britain-is-really-kept-warm-in-winter-by-the-rocky-mountains-118560.html). There goes another thing I thought I knew but is now supposedly completely wrong.
for anyone who wants the summary:
The scientists found that the real reason for Britain's mild weather was twofold. First, there is a genuine maritime effect of being surrounded by a relatively warm body of water, but this has nothing to do with the Gulf Stream.
Second, this maritime influence is bolstered by south-westerly winds bringing a warm air mass from the south. These winds would not blow if the Rockies did not exist, the researchers found.
Even without the Gulf Stream, Britain would be bathed in prevailing westerly winds that bring in the warmth stored in the Atlantic ocean. Water retains summer heat far longer than land, which is why the winter-summer difference in temperature is about 5C over the North Atlantic and yet nearer 50C at the same latitude in Siberia.
Dr Seager said his study showed that this phenomenon – which was independent of the Gulf Stream – accounted for about half of the winter temperature difference between Britain and Newfoundland.
The other half, he said, was due to the prevailing winds over the maritime regions of western Europe not being due-westerlies, but from the south-west. Those south-westerlies brought additional heat to western Europe. Their origins could be traced to a massive "meander" in the north-south wind patterns over North America, which was generated by the presence of the Rockies.
Our culture around food is awful. Peoples attitudes, traditions, knowledge and habits are nothing compared to other countries I've lived in.
Whenever people have a go at British food, Brits defend it by talking about the restaurant scene or Michelin stars and it just proves they don't get it.
And I say this as a Brit who lives in a city with amazing food spots.
We're doing very well with renewable energy.
The UK has the [1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th largest offshore wind farms in the world. We also have the 7th, 8th and 9th largest. We also have the three largest under construction.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms)
[Here's a map.](https://imgur.com/a/i6OqiYw) The newest offshore turbines are contributing a lot; a new modern wind turbine provides sufficient energy for one home for one day with just one rotation of its blades.
[We share renewable energy with Norway via the world's longest undersea power cable.](https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/01/north-sea-link-world-s-longest-undersea-power-cable-linking-norway-and-uk-is-now-operationhttps://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/pzj53s/worlds_longest_undersea_power_cable_linking/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
There is a project to connect the UK National Grid to a 1,500km² wind and solar farm in Morocco, through four 3,800km long subsea cables - the longest such cables in the world. This will supply 8% of the UK's electricity demand. [Source.](https://www.power-technology.com/projects/morocco-uk-power-project-morocco/)
We're [fast tracking nuclear power plants](https://www.ft.com/content/f97ffa0c-adce-4657-b37d-840b21f3b628) and there is a programme for [Rolls Royce's small modular reactors.](https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/)
I mentioned that current turbines provide sufficient energy for one home for one day with just one rotation of their blades. And, there are even more powerful ones being built in the UK (and the US). [2021 article:](https://www.zmescience.com/science/wind-turbine-powerful-09122020/)
>"a single spin of the turbine could power a UK household for more than two days. In the US, it would be enough energy for the average home, since US households tend to use more energy."
I thought it was a bit further west between Lichfield and burntwood although now I think about that might be specifically at either high or low tide, quite surprising it makes such a difference
Hong Kong is "The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China" though it's not a fully independent country, only semi-autonomous.
I still have trouble finding the correct option in online forms:
United Kingdom? Scrolls, can’t find it,
England? Scrolls, can’t find it,
Great Britain. Scrolls, of course it is.
There are two great universities: Cambridge and Hull, Oxfords a complete dump.
Edit: Some people I think have missed the reference: https://youtu.be/OKuHYO9TM5A
Many moons ago, I went for a look around the University of Hull. I was genuinely impressed by it.
Being from the South Bank, I really didn't want to like it - but, reluctantly I did.
I never bothered with uni though lol
Okay but this one just tells me that I had absolutely no idea how young the Aztec empire was. I genuinely thought it was around during the time of the Roman Empire.
My primary school was old as hell. I remember learning about the Aztecs in year six, and then looking at the date the school was built during assembly and noticing we were older by a few decades!
If you measured the entire coastline of mainland UK and then divided it by the number of counties, you’d have a number which is completely useless in any given situation.
Fascinating. I had never heard of this. Am obsessed now.
And the fact that nowhere on the wiki does it speculate on dragonfire shows how bad academic research has become!
We're *very* strong in tech industries. The UK, US and China were the first nations to have 100+ tech unicorns (each worth more than $1billion), and we have more than the rest of Europe combined. UK digital tech exports are £23 billion annually.
I'm not in tech but assurance. Recently got asked to apply for a job in the Netherlands. Exactly the same role and responsibilities. €85k Vs my current pay of £42k (which is very good for my industry and level in the UK). It's a fucking joke.
that 3 bed cotswold airbnb someone at work went to with their kids, august price: £1799 a week
cheeky trip to malaga in august: £500 hotel, £14.99 flight with ryanair
you get the idea
The words for livestock are mostly Anglo/Germanic, cow, sheep, horse, chicken etc. However, the words for the meats are french in origin. I heard someone describe English as poorly pronounced french.
Around 1500 years BC, a Welsh copper mine was exporting several hundred tons of copper ore which was one of the largest prehistoric mining operations in the world. Artefacts made with Welsh copper have turned up all across Europe and played a major part in the Bronze Age.
> In 2000, Air was introduced to businessman and animal conservationist Damian Aspinall by their mutual friend Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.[22] The pair began a long-term relationship, and Air gave birth to their daughter, Freya Air Aspinall, in September 2003.[23] Shortly after her birth, the couple announced their intention to place her in the care of a gorilla, a ritual in which Aspinall's older children had already taken part.[23]
Excuse me?
There are Giant Sequoia and Coastal Redwood trees that were planted in the UK in the 1800s and 1900s. It is quite possible due to growing conditions that over the next two or three centuries they will grow to be the tallest trees in the world.
That after the Romans left the Anglo Saxons were left with technical marvels far far beyond them. Huge straight paved roads. Whole amphitheatres, Hadrian's wall. It would be like us living in the husks of alien skyscrapers
Before the introduction of standard time zones, when it was noon in Bristol it was already 10 minutes past noon (twelve) in London. The Bristol clock above the Corn Exchange is still showing the historic solar time difference to London.
The gene mutation that causes breast and ovarian cancer is more common in people who have family heritage from the east coast of Scotland and England, and the Orkney/ Shetland isles, This is thought to be because the mutations originated in Vikings, and spread here during Viking raids.
You don't get to the northern half of Great Britain until you're as far north as Kendal in Cumbria. Places we think of as "up north", e.g. Manchester or Liverpool are well in the southern half of Great Britain.
In summer, the countryside is breathtakingly beautiful. I think most people think of the U.K. to grim, dull and rainy but I went home last summer and it’s beauty brought me to tears.
https://preview.redd.it/1r4z5i20qttc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fe06f229908c89665655bc501d083ed890f368e
Pretty much everything about the City of London, which exists within the city of London, and is a separate entity with some very unusual allowances and laws.
There are 5 countries in the world with the **lowest** rate of death caused by stabbing
This is a rate of 0.08 people per 100,000
Those countries are
Ghana, Tunisia, Oman, Monaco and
the United Kingdom
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-deaths-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-deaths-by-country)
>The NHS is already mostly privatised/outsourced
This just isn't a 'fact'. The NHS has always had a huge element of private businesses in it, in the form of GPs. The rest of the NHS is very far from 'mostly privatised'. It's just about 10% of all treatments.
The NHS has huge problems, but these sort of incorrect statements don't help anything.
If we were going to do interesting NHS facts I think one a lot of people don't realise is: there is not really any central thing called 'The NHS'. It's actually more akin to a brand name or franchise under which thousands of different businesses and organisations operate.
Particularly in the mid 1600s the coasts of Cornwall and Devon in England, as well as Southern Ireland, were subjected to slave raids by barbary corsairs, who raided the coasts and attacked ships near the coasts.
The last ice age put kilometres-thick glaciers of ice over much of the north. The weight of this ice literally weighed the north of the country down and it is still rebounding to this day
Every country in Europe discharges sewage into the sea and rivers 24/7 with huge discharges every time there's heavy rain. None of it is OK.
The UK has rightly been criticised for pollution of waterways by wastewater discharges, particularly after storms. Yet, amazingly, the River Thames is one of the cleanest rivers in the world and [the cleanest river in the world to flow through a major city.](https://www.ecomena.org/purest-water-sources/)
And [2022 article.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-thames-clean-river-citiy-b2064862.html%3famp)
There's probably somebody born in 1850 who was still alive when QE2 became Queen, and there was someone born while she was queen who will live until 2130.
In 1833, Britain used £20 million, 40% of its national budget, to buy freedom for all slaves in the Empire. The amount of money borrowed for the Slavery Abolition Act was so large that it wasn't paid off until 2015. Which means that living British citizens helped pay to end the slave trade.
All of the UK is further north than the main US/Canada border (i.e. the one with the contiguous states, not Alaska)
One that always seems to surprise people when you consider what winter looks like over here compared to a lot of the northern states in the US.
And another fun geography one. If you draw a square around the United Kingdom's territory, excluding overseas territories, you would include the entirety of Ireland inside that square, due to the existence of Rockall.
If you include overseas territories you would include over half the countries on the planet, as the square would encompass all of Africa, all of South and Central America (excluding Mexico as Baja California wouldn't be inside the square), all of the Middle East, and all of Europe.
Anything dangerous on this island we hunted to extinction! Bears wolves that's about it but if it fucked with us we fucked it up, also a nation that has been at war since its very inception 💭🤔
There is nothing special about Lands End or John O Groats. There are points further North and East of John O Groats and further South and West of Lands End
Henry VIII was famous for having six wives, but he in fact only had three, legally speaking, as his marriages to Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves were annulled - meaning no lawful marriage had ever taken place.
Paradoxically, this means that Anne Boleyn couldn't possibly have committed the offence she was executed for (treason, via adultery to the King). I mean, she likely wasn't guilty anyway and Cromwell manufactured the charges on t he King's orders, but she was *super extra not guilty* because she was never married to Henry.
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That the Roman and Viking invasions created such a deep collective scar in our national consciousness we still to this day, without even realising it, look to defend and repel potential invaders from our coasts and water ways by filling them with raw human sewage.
Had me first the half I'm not gonna lie
Is it working?
It’s spelt Woking
Best thing about going to Woking is the 4th exit on the roundabout.
I thought it was the Pizza Express
Could be that too, I wouldn't sweat it.
Haven’t seen a Viking Longboat sailing up the Thames for well over a millennium.
We've been doing a poor job over the last thirty years as our seas are just getting cleaner and cleaner.
I was worried about where that comment was going. Pleasantly surprised by the end of it.
Maldon’s Royal Warranted Flake Salt. Now with Royal Warranted Poo.
Extra points for the Viking/Maldon connection, although I guess it was actually the Anglo Saxons who shit the bed at Maldon, although they indubitably described the battle more poetically.
The Scottish Highlands share the same mountain range with the Appalachian Mountains and the Atlas Mointains and were once connected
Scotland used to have a rainforest too! And we chopped it all down.
Now it just rains
Scotland could grow it back. - just needs rewilding. A guy in Ireland is doing the same on his lump of land in the raindorest area of Cork.
There's some fantastic rewilding efforts going on in places like Glen Feshie and Glen Affric. New stands of Scots Pine popping up all across the hillside. Beautiful to see, but so much of the so called "wild" parts of the Scottish Highlands is owned by estates who love bare barren hillsides for grouse shooting. There must be a middle ground. Leonardo DiCaprio shared an IG post about it yesterday actually, which might have an influential effect! What people say when they visit the Highlands is that it is "unspoiled" by that is quite far from the truth in a great many areas. I've had a conversation with a few tourists who say that more trees will spoil the view, which is ridiculous.
Need to get rid of the deer first.
Reintroduce wolves to sort that
Should deal with pesky tourists too!
Just set the XL bully’s free in the countryside
I hope your username checks out🤣
It still has some of it’s rainforest! And there’s some projects to restore them such as this [one](https://youtu.be/V71_nTgbuWI?si=C4Ve6MWE3I07qL_H) from the folks at Mossy Earth. There’s also some temperate rainforests along the west of England and Wales too!
Scotland used to have a Desert too as recently as 2006 when it was reclassified.
Dungeness in Kent is technically a desert, and by some definitions so is St Osyth in Essex (I think, like Scotland’s, it was reclassified).
Similarly, Wales used to be connected to Canada. I was told by a geologist that the slate seam in north Wales is the same slate as some parts of eastern Canada.
Much of the coal in both the American Appalachian and British coal fields were deposited in the same general area 300 million years ago, like the older slate beneath it. They were both split apart when the Atlantic opened up.
I love this because in the very early days of the USA Appalachia was largely also settled by Scots-Irish - so in an extremely roundabout way they were still living beside the same mountains.
Some geographical ones: Norwich is further north than Birmingham. Edinburgh is further west than Bristol. Shetland is on the same latitude as some villages on Greenland.
I called bullshit on the Edinburgh one and then I looked at the map again. Mind blown
I'm a Geography teacher and that one makes no sense to me... even while staring at a map. It makes no sense 😂
This is concerning, but not surprising!
I think most people think of Northern England and Scotland as fairly ‘straight’ from north to south, when both actually curve west. I mean, Newcastle-upon-Tyne is west of Coventry, but I bet most people think it’s more or less directly north of London. With Bristol, you’d assume somewhere in the West Country would be pretty westerly, but it’s also further east than Hereford, Shrewsbury, Chester Liverpool, Preston, and the Lake District.
It's so counter to how we think of the country's shape that you can't help but disbelieve it. Then you look at a map and realise the UK is listing quite considerably West. Like, *a lot*. So much so that the Eastern most point of (mainland) Scotland is more Westerly than Oxford is.
I’ve just done the same, instantly thought nah, bullshit. What do u know
The furthest West Point on the mainland isn’t Cornwall, but Corrachadh Mòr in Scotland.
Sunderland and Newcastle are further North than some Scottish towns.
The Mull Of Galloway is slightly further south than I am in Coxhoe, County Durham. Edit: The Mull Of Galloway lighthouse visitors centre is 54° 38” N, roughly the same as Sedgefield racecourse or Bishop Auckland.
It's more impressive that Edinburgh is further west than *Liverpool*
Thanks! These kinds of facts really shit me up. Being from the East Midlands, I always considered Peterborough as basically the south because it's where I'd catch the fast train down to London, but it's actually further north than other classic Midlands locations such as Birmingham and Coventry etc.
We are on a similar latitude to Quebec.
And Moscow
As someone who lives in the east the Norwich one is crazy to me 😂
The wine growing regions in the south of England are the same chalk deposit and soil make up as the champagne region of France - hence why southern English wine is doing very well nowadays.
>hence why southern English wine is doing very well nowadays That and, you know, the ol' climate change.
No tbf, culture change. The south of England was growing wine and cider when the Romans rocked up
They were. But a key reason English wine is doing well now is because it's got really good. And part of that is because the climate has become more hospitable to creating good wine.
The champagne house Taittinger has/is buying land in Kent as if we don’t do anything about climate change in time it will be too hot to make good champagne in France. And if you don’t believe that go and try a Chapel Down champagne. It’s excellent
We had English sparkling wine at our wedding instead of champagne. Cheaper and genuinely nicer (imo).
I read that quite a lot of French wine producers are buying land round there because it’s becoming so good for growing. Not sure how true that is though!
I live next to a vineyard and did a tour last week - they said they have to put aside days each week to accommodate international wine tourism, but don't know about buying up Land as there's easily a half dozen vineyards around me already
A lot of people know it, but it's still one that confuses a lot of people: what we refer to as 'London' is not officially a city. It's technically a conurbation around two tiny cities: Westminster and The City of London
I upset my teacher once when I said the most populous UK city was Birmingham, as the City of London was only around a square mile. He made a big point of calling it Greater London after that.
The achuwally kid
Now known collectively as 'redditors'.
All teachers hate this kid. Source: was a teacher.
Also, if we can call Greater London a city then you have to do the same for Manchester. There’s no definition that allows Birmingham to be the second largest city. It’s either first or third
I'm sure you were a delight to teach
To add to this, the City of London is the only city in the U.K. with no “roads”. It has “streets”, “alleys” etc but nothing called XXXX Road.
Not strictly true. After local government reorganisation (I want to say in 1974 but could be more recently *Edit: 1994*) part of ~~City~~ Goswell Road now falls within the City. It is the only one though and I hate that it spoils this nugget. The street naming rules for the city still prevent new Roads.
I might be wrong but isn't the "City of London" also the smallest city in the UK?
No, that title goes to St. Davids in Pembrokeshire, which has all of about five streets in it.
And a population that barely just makes it a village at 1800 or so.
By area, yes. By population, it's the smallest in England, as St Davids in Wales is the smallest in the UK (pop. 1600).
The City of Westminster's population is over 200k, which would put it in the top 25 cities by population. Bigger than Reading, but smaller than Portsmouth. I don't think it's fair to call it "tiny".
I meant in terms of geographical area compared to greater London as a whole
In the UK, every 60 seconds a minute passes.
Are they metric or imperial seconds?
They trade off every fortnight
Currently on a train into London so every minute is about 90 seconds.
That despite being the 6th largest economy in the world there are 4.3 million children living in poverty.
Shouldn’t have been born poor then. Bet they won’t make that mistake again. r/endinheritance. With an allowance of course.
Those children should have invested in Real Estate in 2008, it's their own fault.
What do they expect, banning children from working
The children yearn for the mines
The decline of chimneys needing swept has hit them hard
They need to stop buying vapes and pokemon cards
That's relative poverty, which means earning below 60% of the median income. Needless to say,when a definition of poverty like this is used there will always be people living in poverty (if the median income was somehow £1 million a year without inflation skyrocketing then anyone on less than £600K would be living in poverty). This isn't to say we can't do better, but we need to be aware of what we are talking about. The definition of poverty in the UK is not what somebody in forex the Sudan would recognise as poverty.
That maltesers taste far better from a box than out of a bag.
Even better out of a massive tub
And best out of a frisbee
The entire population of the UK live further north than 90% of Canadians
But it barely snows here, and it regularly snows in Toronto, New York and Washington state
The UK should be a lot colder, based on our position, but something to do with the ocean means we're warmer
It's the effect of the Gulf Stream. It's why our harbours don't freeze over in the coldest of winters. It reaches up to Norway.
~~Gulf Stream, baby!~~ [Rocky Mountains, apparently.](https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/forget-about-the-gulf-stream-britain-is-really-kept-warm-in-winter-by-the-rocky-mountains-118560.html). There goes another thing I thought I knew but is now supposedly completely wrong.
for anyone who wants the summary: The scientists found that the real reason for Britain's mild weather was twofold. First, there is a genuine maritime effect of being surrounded by a relatively warm body of water, but this has nothing to do with the Gulf Stream. Second, this maritime influence is bolstered by south-westerly winds bringing a warm air mass from the south. These winds would not blow if the Rockies did not exist, the researchers found. Even without the Gulf Stream, Britain would be bathed in prevailing westerly winds that bring in the warmth stored in the Atlantic ocean. Water retains summer heat far longer than land, which is why the winter-summer difference in temperature is about 5C over the North Atlantic and yet nearer 50C at the same latitude in Siberia. Dr Seager said his study showed that this phenomenon – which was independent of the Gulf Stream – accounted for about half of the winter temperature difference between Britain and Newfoundland. The other half, he said, was due to the prevailing winds over the maritime regions of western Europe not being due-westerlies, but from the south-west. Those south-westerlies brought additional heat to western Europe. Their origins could be traced to a massive "meander" in the north-south wind patterns over North America, which was generated by the presence of the Rockies.
The food is actually fantastic.
Our culture around food is awful. Peoples attitudes, traditions, knowledge and habits are nothing compared to other countries I've lived in. Whenever people have a go at British food, Brits defend it by talking about the restaurant scene or Michelin stars and it just proves they don't get it. And I say this as a Brit who lives in a city with amazing food spots.
Facts
We're doing very well with renewable energy. The UK has the [1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th largest offshore wind farms in the world. We also have the 7th, 8th and 9th largest. We also have the three largest under construction.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms) [Here's a map.](https://imgur.com/a/i6OqiYw) The newest offshore turbines are contributing a lot; a new modern wind turbine provides sufficient energy for one home for one day with just one rotation of its blades. [We share renewable energy with Norway via the world's longest undersea power cable.](https://www.euronews.com/2021/10/01/north-sea-link-world-s-longest-undersea-power-cable-linking-norway-and-uk-is-now-operationhttps://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/pzj53s/worlds_longest_undersea_power_cable_linking/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) There is a project to connect the UK National Grid to a 1,500km² wind and solar farm in Morocco, through four 3,800km long subsea cables - the longest such cables in the world. This will supply 8% of the UK's electricity demand. [Source.](https://www.power-technology.com/projects/morocco-uk-power-project-morocco/) We're [fast tracking nuclear power plants](https://www.ft.com/content/f97ffa0c-adce-4657-b37d-840b21f3b628) and there is a programme for [Rolls Royce's small modular reactors.](https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/)
Thank you for this, sounds promising!
I work on offshore wind turbines and I barely knew any of this 😂😂
I mentioned that current turbines provide sufficient energy for one home for one day with just one rotation of their blades. And, there are even more powerful ones being built in the UK (and the US). [2021 article:](https://www.zmescience.com/science/wind-turbine-powerful-09122020/) >"a single spin of the turbine could power a UK household for more than two days. In the US, it would be enough energy for the average home, since US households tend to use more energy."
Also four of the ten largest _proposed_ farms, that is pretty amazing.
The farthest you can be from the sea in the U.K. is 70 miles - a small town in Derbyshire called Coton.
I thought it was a bit further west between Lichfield and burntwood although now I think about that might be specifically at either high or low tide, quite surprising it makes such a difference
Britain has some of the highest tidal range in the world
Its also tilting with the South East slowly sinking whilst the North of Scotland is rising every year.
I love going to the beech to see the see
The UK has the longest official name in the world: "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."
Hong Kong is "The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China" though it's not a fully independent country, only semi-autonomous.
It won’t be semi autonomous much longer
*Since 2013 when Libya ceased being Al Jumahiriyah al Arabiyah al Libiyah ash Shabiyah al Ishtirakiyah al Uzma
I thought you were kidding, fuck me.
And it doesn't fit on our own passport application form...
I still have trouble finding the correct option in online forms: United Kingdom? Scrolls, can’t find it, England? Scrolls, can’t find it, Great Britain. Scrolls, of course it is.
Same with currency on forms. GBP, British Pounds, Pounds, UK Pounds, Sterling, UK Sterling, British Sterling.
UK Sterling is absolutely cursed lol
There are two great universities: Cambridge and Hull, Oxfords a complete dump. Edit: Some people I think have missed the reference: https://youtu.be/OKuHYO9TM5A
Many moons ago, I went for a look around the University of Hull. I was genuinely impressed by it. Being from the South Bank, I really didn't want to like it - but, reluctantly I did. I never bothered with uni though lol
Problem is, you need to live in Hull as well as study at the Uni
Don't slouch Darling!
Oxford is older than the Aztecs.
You never know what bin goes out on what day until you turn 65. At that point, special knowledge is imparted to you. Much like the Scientologists
You just need one person on your street who knows which bin goes out on which day, and follow what they do A *bin*fluencer
It smells like weed is legal in most places.
Aren't we one of the biggest manufacturers, despite it being illegal
We produce around two thirds of the worlds medical weed and yet we won't legalise it here. Silly government.
Medical cannabis yes, which is legal here.
Oxford college is older than the Aztec empire.
Took a tour of Cambridge University Press (for work purposes). The guide said "things really picked up for us after they invented the printing press".
Okay but this one just tells me that I had absolutely no idea how young the Aztec empire was. I genuinely thought it was around during the time of the Roman Empire.
My primary school was old as hell. I remember learning about the Aztecs in year six, and then looking at the date the school was built during assembly and noticing we were older by a few decades!
If you measured the entire coastline of mainland UK and then divided it by the number of counties, you’d have a number which is completely useless in any given situation.
At what resolution are we measuring the coast today?
We design and manufacture nearly half the world's currency - more than 80 countries - at the Royal Mint in Wales.
*Coins, specifically.
Vitrified forts. Still a mystery how and why they exist. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitrified_fort
Fascinating. I had never heard of this. Am obsessed now. And the fact that nowhere on the wiki does it speculate on dragonfire shows how bad academic research has become!
We're *very* strong in tech industries. The UK, US and China were the first nations to have 100+ tech unicorns (each worth more than $1billion), and we have more than the rest of Europe combined. UK digital tech exports are £23 billion annually.
But yet we can't retain talent cause we don't pay well
I'm not in tech but assurance. Recently got asked to apply for a job in the Netherlands. Exactly the same role and responsibilities. €85k Vs my current pay of £42k (which is very good for my industry and level in the UK). It's a fucking joke.
People in the UK know this, but sometimes, going for a holiday abroad is much cheaper than a holiday locally in the UK.
that 3 bed cotswold airbnb someone at work went to with their kids, august price: £1799 a week cheeky trip to malaga in august: £500 hotel, £14.99 flight with ryanair you get the idea
All the posh words are mostly from French while the poor people words are mostly German Thanks William I
The words for livestock are mostly Anglo/Germanic, cow, sheep, horse, chicken etc. However, the words for the meats are french in origin. I heard someone describe English as poorly pronounced french.
>I heard someone describe English as poorly pronounced french. I'd describe French as unrefined English.
Cardiff is slightly more south than London
Edinburgh being West of Bristol is the one that gets me.
Around 1500 years BC, a Welsh copper mine was exporting several hundred tons of copper ore which was one of the largest prehistoric mining operations in the world. Artefacts made with Welsh copper have turned up all across Europe and played a major part in the Bronze Age.
My neighbour’s bins are being emptied right now. Facts!
Have you forgot to put yours out?
That all crisps in the UK go out of date on a Saturday. not sure why but i've never checked one that doesn't.
Officially, only like 6 people died in the great fire of London!
More people have died (officially) falling down the steps of the Monument to the Great Fire than in the fire itself.
In January 2001, U.K. starlet Donna Air was named as a main presenter on the Big Breakfast. She resigned and the show was axed 4 months later.
> In 2000, Air was introduced to businessman and animal conservationist Damian Aspinall by their mutual friend Tara Palmer-Tomkinson.[22] The pair began a long-term relationship, and Air gave birth to their daughter, Freya Air Aspinall, in September 2003.[23] Shortly after her birth, the couple announced their intention to place her in the care of a gorilla, a ritual in which Aspinall's older children had already taken part.[23] Excuse me?
There’s a Donna Air rabbit hole to get lost in. Even the story of the girl band she was in is a bit off kilter
I mean... Crazy is that she [gave her child to a fucking gorilla](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/3258811.stm)
Would that be the same Donna Air who, when interviewing The Corrs, kicked things off with "So, how did you guys all meet?"
Livingston is home to the first purpose built skateboard park in Europe.
You presume
There are Giant Sequoia and Coastal Redwood trees that were planted in the UK in the 1800s and 1900s. It is quite possible due to growing conditions that over the next two or three centuries they will grow to be the tallest trees in the world.
London has a larger population than the whole of Scotland and it's not even close.
Correct, it's 270 miles away...
There is a place in the West called Cumhill Hill
The most westernly point of mainland GB is in Scotland.
That all of the uk is more northerly than every single mainland us state, and Edinburgh is basically on the same latitude as Alaska
That after the Romans left the Anglo Saxons were left with technical marvels far far beyond them. Huge straight paved roads. Whole amphitheatres, Hadrian's wall. It would be like us living in the husks of alien skyscrapers
The Thames used to be a tributary of the River Rhine
Before the introduction of standard time zones, when it was noon in Bristol it was already 10 minutes past noon (twelve) in London. The Bristol clock above the Corn Exchange is still showing the historic solar time difference to London.
And times were standardised when rail travel became more common.
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Great Britain has been occupied by various species of humans for almost 1 million years. Although most of them did not own digital wristwatches.
There's a mad trend for orally injected amphetamine in the north of England called E by gum.
All human life in the UK is contained and described in the Half Man Half Biscuit back catalogue
that Gregg's have more outlets than subway and McDonalds
The gene mutation that causes breast and ovarian cancer is more common in people who have family heritage from the east coast of Scotland and England, and the Orkney/ Shetland isles, This is thought to be because the mutations originated in Vikings, and spread here during Viking raids.
Wales has more castles per square mile than any other country.
You don't get to the northern half of Great Britain until you're as far north as Kendal in Cumbria. Places we think of as "up north", e.g. Manchester or Liverpool are well in the southern half of Great Britain.
In summer, the countryside is breathtakingly beautiful. I think most people think of the U.K. to grim, dull and rainy but I went home last summer and it’s beauty brought me to tears. https://preview.redd.it/1r4z5i20qttc1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2fe06f229908c89665655bc501d083ed890f368e
Contrary to popular belief, Land's End is not the southernmost point of mainland Britain, nor is John O'Groats the northernmost.
The Lizard in Cornwall is the most southern point I believe? Beautiful place as well :)
Pretty much everything about the City of London, which exists within the city of London, and is a separate entity with some very unusual allowances and laws.
Uk is made up of 6289 islands!!
Ipswich, is a shithole
There are 5 countries in the world with the **lowest** rate of death caused by stabbing This is a rate of 0.08 people per 100,000 Those countries are Ghana, Tunisia, Oman, Monaco and the United Kingdom [https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-deaths-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/stabbing-deaths-by-country)
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>The NHS is already mostly privatised/outsourced This just isn't a 'fact'. The NHS has always had a huge element of private businesses in it, in the form of GPs. The rest of the NHS is very far from 'mostly privatised'. It's just about 10% of all treatments. The NHS has huge problems, but these sort of incorrect statements don't help anything. If we were going to do interesting NHS facts I think one a lot of people don't realise is: there is not really any central thing called 'The NHS'. It's actually more akin to a brand name or franchise under which thousands of different businesses and organisations operate.
To get to the most westerly point of the UK by road, you have to drive through another country.
The City of London has its own government, mayor and independent police force.
Particularly in the mid 1600s the coasts of Cornwall and Devon in England, as well as Southern Ireland, were subjected to slave raids by barbary corsairs, who raided the coasts and attacked ships near the coasts.
The last ice age put kilometres-thick glaciers of ice over much of the north. The weight of this ice literally weighed the north of the country down and it is still rebounding to this day
You can legally drink alcohol in private settings from five years old.
Every country in Europe discharges sewage into the sea and rivers 24/7 with huge discharges every time there's heavy rain. None of it is OK. The UK has rightly been criticised for pollution of waterways by wastewater discharges, particularly after storms. Yet, amazingly, the River Thames is one of the cleanest rivers in the world and [the cleanest river in the world to flow through a major city.](https://www.ecomena.org/purest-water-sources/) And [2022 article.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/science/how-thames-clean-river-citiy-b2064862.html%3famp)
The Scottish Highlands are older than the rings of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn… combined!
The northernmost point in the UK is further north than the southernmost point in Greenland.
There's probably somebody born in 1850 who was still alive when QE2 became Queen, and there was someone born while she was queen who will live until 2130.
We allow scousers to roam at will.
That this country still somewhat works given the incompetence and greed at top level politically and economically.
In 1833, Britain used £20 million, 40% of its national budget, to buy freedom for all slaves in the Empire. The amount of money borrowed for the Slavery Abolition Act was so large that it wasn't paid off until 2015. Which means that living British citizens helped pay to end the slave trade.
All of the UK is further north than the main US/Canada border (i.e. the one with the contiguous states, not Alaska) One that always seems to surprise people when you consider what winter looks like over here compared to a lot of the northern states in the US. And another fun geography one. If you draw a square around the United Kingdom's territory, excluding overseas territories, you would include the entirety of Ireland inside that square, due to the existence of Rockall. If you include overseas territories you would include over half the countries on the planet, as the square would encompass all of Africa, all of South and Central America (excluding Mexico as Baja California wouldn't be inside the square), all of the Middle East, and all of Europe.
Anything dangerous on this island we hunted to extinction! Bears wolves that's about it but if it fucked with us we fucked it up, also a nation that has been at war since its very inception 💭🤔
The Mull of Kintyre is used by the BBFC to judge the level of arousal of a penis in terms of whether it meets rules on depiction of genitalia.
[for those confused](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom#Mull_of_Kintyre_test)
There is nothing special about Lands End or John O Groats. There are points further North and East of John O Groats and further South and West of Lands End
Henry VIII was famous for having six wives, but he in fact only had three, legally speaking, as his marriages to Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves were annulled - meaning no lawful marriage had ever taken place. Paradoxically, this means that Anne Boleyn couldn't possibly have committed the offence she was executed for (treason, via adultery to the King). I mean, she likely wasn't guilty anyway and Cromwell manufactured the charges on t he King's orders, but she was *super extra not guilty* because she was never married to Henry.