On the Rock of Gibraltar
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On the Rock of Gibraltar
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Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#2[deleted]
Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#3Gibraltar’s airport is one of the weirdest and coolest I’ve ever seen: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/11/gibraltar-airport-worl... You just casually walk and drive across the runway a few minutes after a plane lands. Their ATC must have quite a lot on their plate.
But Gibraltar has managed to efficiently pack a lot of services onto that one small rock.
Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#4> From its southern point, at Punta de Europa and O’Hara’s Battery, the view across the Strait to Africa is like nothing else in the world.
It's not 'Punta de Europa', It's just 'Europa Point'. I've no idea where the author got this idea from (perhaps Wikipedia?).
Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#5Gibraltar’s airport is one of the weirdest and coolest I’ve ever seen: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/11/gibraltar-airport-worl... You just casually walk and drive across the runway a few minutes after a plane lands. Their ATC must have quite a lot on their plate. But Gibraltar has managed to efficiently pack a lot of services onto that one small rock.
I used to cross this at least twice a day going to and from school. One time as a teenager a friend and I were fart-arsing around very (very) slowly until a stern warning came over the tannoy and we looked Eastward to see a plane coming into land, much closer than we would have liked. Silly idiots.
Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#6> From its southern point, at Punta de Europa and O’Hara’s Battery, the view across the Strait to Africa is like nothing else in the world. It's not 'Punta de Europa', It's just 'Europa Point'. I've no idea where the author got this idea from (perhaps Wikipedia?).
Seems like Spanish to me?
Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#7Gibraltar’s airport is one of the weirdest and coolest I’ve ever seen: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/11/gibraltar-airport-worl... You just casually walk and drive across the runway a few minutes after a plane lands. Their ATC must have quite a lot on their plate. But Gibraltar has managed to efficiently pack a lot of services onto that one small rock.
It's great fun - it was going to be changed when the joint airport was planned with a relief road going around and under it, in a way, I'm glad they didn't do that.
It's also the runway for the RAF base, and holds the record for airport closest to the town centre it serves, at 500m.
Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#8I've spent a lot of time in Gibraltar and it's an interesting place - you either love it, or hate it, there doesn't seem to be any inbetween.
Palm Trees and what look like British Bobbies, the duty free shops on the high street, the fabulous caves - there's a lot in such a small place.
Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#9> From its southern point, at Punta de Europa and O’Hara’s Battery, the view across the Strait to Africa is like nothing else in the world. It's not 'Punta de Europa', It's just 'Europa Point'. I've no idea where the author got this idea from (perhaps Wikipedia?).
Seems like Spanish to me?
Yes, it is. Gibraltar is British, so most things are named in English, especially significant things.
The local Spanish dialect - Llanito - would also refer to it as Punta de Europa, but that doesn't much change what it's actually called on the map, etc.
Re: On the Rock of Gibraltar
#10It seems to me central to the character of British imperialism, that the domination of geopolitically important region is pursued not because of some inert ethnocentrism but because they believe themselves to be the bearers of a superior social order and that spreading it is the Anglo-Saxon man's burden. Recently this national pride has turned into xenophobia and their prime minister seems more a character of the Moscow Kremlin than of Downing Street. That he and the UK will have a role in the history of this century seems doubtful.