Nine hundred thousand people visit the Stonehenge monoliths each year, but the experience is tightly controlled by English Heritage. If you visit Stonehenge as a tourist you’ll find that you’re not allowed to touch the stones. You’ll be able to view them from the visitor’s centre. Normally you can also walk along a path which [more...]
Sponge cake is one of the easiest and quickest desserts you can make and the variations for fillings and embellishments are endless. Sponge cake can be very simple and plain or it can be luxurious and fancy. Most cookbooks, and especially books on baking basics, will provide you with a recipe for sponge cake. There [more...]
Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia and the country’s largest city. In 1866, under the reign of King Norodom I, Phnom Penh became the permanent seat of government. This was the beginning of the transformation of a riverside village into a city. By the 1920s, Phnom Penh was known as the Pearl of Asia. [more...]
Nicosia is the capital of Cyprus and the country’s largest city. Nicosia was a city-state known as Ledra or Ledrae in ancient times. By 348 AD, the town was called Lefkousia or Ledra. Still under the name Lefkosia, the city became the capital around the 10th century. The name “Nicosia” began with the arrival of [more...]
Panama City is the capital of the Republic of Panama and the country’s largest city. Panama City was founded in 1519. It was the first European settlement on the continental American Pacific Coast. The pirate Henry Morgan, with 1400 men, attacked the city, which was subsequently destroyed by fire. It was rebuilt in 1673 in [more...]
Niamey is the capital of Niger and the country’s largest city. Niamey was probably founded in the eighteenth century. It had little importance until the French developed a colonial post there in the 1890s. In 1926 it was made the capital of Niger. Much of its present importance is due to its location on the [more...]
N’Djamena is the capital city of Chad and the country’s largest city. N’Djamena was founded by the French as Fort-Lamy in 1900. Its name was changed to N’Djamena in 1973. The city was largely destroyed during the Chadian Civil War, in 1979 and once again in 1980. On April 13, 2006, a rebel United Front [more...]
New Delhi is the capital of India. New Delhi is a small part of the Delhi metropolitan area and is a 20th century planned city. However, New Delhi is laid out on the same site as seven ancient cities and so includes many historic monuments such as the Jantar Mantar and the Lodhi Gardens. Human [more...]
A bonnet made of wood? Yes, the chip in 18th and 19th century chip bonnets and hats was actually made from thin strips of shaved wood. It was used by hat-makers in a similar way to braided straw, and so was sometimes called “chip straw” or “chip braid”. But it was still wood. It could [more...]
The Easter bonnet custom grew from the tradition that spring was a time for fresh clothing. There was a connection between new garments and Easter-time in many parts of Europe, going back for centuries. In the 1800s if a woman couldn’t afford a brand new outfit, a spring bonnet was a nice way to renew [more...]
Primary colors are the colors we mix to produce all the other colors. Because there are different ways to do the mixing, we need different sets of primary colors. The primary colors of light are needed when we are mixing different colored light together. This is done in a computer monitor (whether using LCD technology, [more...]
Nassau is the capital of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and the country’s largest city. Nassau was first known as Charles Town. It was destroyed by the Spanish in 1684, later rebuilt and renamed Nassau in 1695. Though Nassau is quite dingy in parts, enough history has been preserved to make a visit worthwhile. While [more...]
An egg hunt is popular in some parts of the UK, but at one time it was as likely to be a hare hunt – either really trying to find a hare or a ritual mock hunt. The idea of the Easter hare, or a rabbit, hiding eggs for children to find may have arrived [more...]
Nairobi is the capital of Kenya and the country’s largest city. Founded was in 1899. The city quickly grew to become the capital of British East Africa in 1907 and later the capital of the Kenyan republic in 1963. Nairobi has numerous parks and open spaces. Most of Nairobi is green-space, and the city has [more...]
Muscat is the capital of Oman and the country’s largest city. Archaeological evidence for settlement dates back to the 6th millennium BC. Muscat has been known since the 1st century AD as a trading port between the West and the East. It was ruled by various tribes as well as foreign powers such as the [more...]
Why are there twelve stars on the European flag? It’s to represent the original member states, isn’t it? That’s a popular belief, but it’s not true. When the Council of Europe was considering its flag in 1953, it had fifteen member states. There was a suggestion to fix the number of stars at fifteen in [more...]
Moscow is the capital of the Russian Federation and the country’s largest city. The first Russian reference to Moscow dates from 1147. The city ceased being Russia’s capital in 1712, after the founding of Saint Petersburg. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Moscow again became the capital. Few places in the world have undergone such [more...]
Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and the country’s largest city. Montevideo was founded as a Spanish military base in 1726. In 1828, the it became the capital of Uruguay. This southernmost capital on the continent is home to half of Uruguay’s population. Montevideo is a cosmopolitan city. Visitors can find a taste of colonial [more...]
The Big Mac index is a very quick and very easy way of comparing the relative value of two currencies. Developed by The Economist Newspaper, the Big Mac index is based on “burgernomics,” the partly tongue-in-cheek theory that a Big Mac, the flagship hamburger of the McDonald’s fast-food chain, “should” cost the same amount of [more...]
When a County Court Judgment is made against a person following a successful action by a claimant or plaintiff, the details of the defendant or debtor and the judgment is entered in the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines. There are separate registers for England and Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and [more...]