Comments by "John Warner" (@johncrwarner) on "IWrocker" channel.

  1. The fun thing is the European signs are all very similar largely because they are all signatories to the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals Knowing these helps a lot in driving in another country.
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  2. I got Google maps out to try to work out how the f%%¢ they managed to get there.
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  3. The Dutch have taken over thirty years to get to this point. They were worried about road deaths and in developing road / street planning to make them safer developed this culture. I think every country can change when they focus on reducing road accidents and deaths.
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  4. In Italy a cedro (pl. cedri) is a distinct type of citrus fruit. They sell cedrata drinks The taste of cedro fruit is distinct from standard lemon. The most famous brand is Tassoni Cedrata from Salò on Lake Garda.
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  5. The blue flag with twelve stars is the both the flag of the Council of Europe and was adopted by the EU later. The Council of Europe is a much broader organization than the EU.
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  6. Zundert is famous to me for being the birthplace of Vincent Van Gogh
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  7. I remember coming to the States in 1989 and seeing the High School catch-up classes broadcast locally and being amazed how much five points of US History were emphasised War of Independence War of 1812 American Civil War First World War Second World War. I thought it was a little simplistic and unnuanced BUT... these folks were having problems with this basic schema. Oh dear.
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  8. I believe there is a governing body called Snooker USA and it might be worth searching for their website I suspect Chicago will have Snooker tables somewhere.
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  9. The first quiz - 78% is good (for someone who isn't from the continent and hasn't done prep)
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  10. I associate Orangina with camping holidays in France in the 1970s It wasn't common at that time in other countries but that changed over the years so at my local supermarket it is readily available and we are talking about the supermarket five minutes walk from our house which has quite a restricted range of stuff. These places are the modern version of the "Tante Emma Laden" the old mom and pop general stores in America.
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  11. I haven't seen those mini cokes in Germany though I don't look for it. I imagine they are sold as mixers or at rip-off places like airports
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  12.  @Robalogot  I fear that a) Schiphol International Airport is a source of foreigners coming to look at Amsterdam b) Amsterdam has better PR than Ghent / Gent / Gand - or as it was known in Medieval times Gaunt (as in John of Gaunt).
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  13.  @autohmae  I think there is certainly some resistance to that in the Netherlands
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  14. This one which I have travelled around because of the trees etc makes it easier than other ones like the one in Swindon where the island in the middle was smaller and barren - which made it less easy, in my opinion.
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  15. Germany might be an interesting test case as it is a federal country with sixteen separate states and a federal government which often has to negotiate over policy etc. It was designed by British and American lawyers after world war two and is sort of what they thought their governments should be like.
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  16. Reisebüro Behrens is a German tour company so the bus is likely full of German tourists LOL
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  17.  @arturobianco848  Though there has been advocacy for fifty years or so to me the key changes in government policy were the SWOV report "Naar een duurzaam veilig wegverkeer" (Towards sustainably safe road traffic) in 1992 and its adoption by the Dutch government over the following years. Just for context I remember going on holiday in the Netherlands in the late 1970s with my family and the Netherlands being a car-priority place where you parked on the central market square like many other European cities but that is no longer the case.
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  18.  @autohmae  The sense of their road safety policy is perhaps best described as a refusal to blame the victim. They view mandatory bike helmets as putting responsibility on the cyclist rather than the vehicle driver who hits them. I think it is a discussion point in the Netherlands at the moment but to be honest my Dutch language skills aren't that great so my knowledge of the current debate is limited.
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  19. Can I recommend watching some how to pour beer especially the European ones as they can produce a lot of head and it isn't the way most beers are sold.
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  20. The Swiss have 5 CHF coins (they are worth over 5 USD!) and usually coins are not accepted at foreign exchange when I go to Switzerland I try to avoid ending up with 5 Swiss Franc coins asa they stack up quickly and you are stuck with them until you visit Switzerland again.
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  21. I was on a catamaran ferry between Denmark and Sweden and I was sat behind two people one was a Swede and another a Dane and they spoke in English to each other. Their native languages are fairly close and their written forms are very close. But speaking a "neutral" language like English is more acceptable.
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  22. I think you can skip countries and come back to them later That helps.
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  23.  @dimrrider9133  There was advocacy in the seventies certainly but government policy, planning and design priorities changed after the 1992 report by SWOV called: "Naar een duurzaam veilig wegverkeer" (Towards sustainably safe road traffic) hence my reference to thirty years.
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  24.  @arturobianco848  I remember Marco te Brömmelstroet's book "Movement" giving some history but I was looking for it over the weekend and cannot find it at the moment. I currently have a book-mageddon at my house as I am reorganizing the library.
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  25.  @photovincent  And Utrecht filled in its canal / moat in the 1970s
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  26. The Czechs can thank Jan Hus (1370 - 1415) for his reforms which are the basis for the current orthography. Jan Hus was an interest person and an early church reformer who was executed at the Council of Constance in 1415 after his free passage was rescinded and he was tried for heresy. His followers still survive as the Moravian Church. Czech is quite straight forward in spelling compared to Polish which had , I believe, FOUR reformations none of which stuck LOL.
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  27. If you want to see hardcore cycling in the Winter Oulu in Finland near the Arctic Circle has all-year cycling and there is a BBC World Service report on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URMQ0d286hY Enjoy!
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  28. It is sometimes useful with names like Peugeot and Stihl to click the little loudspeaker symbol on wikipedia to hear someone say the name Often there is at least one anglophone pronunciation and sometimes a native version - it is interesting. BTW when I speak English to British or American English speakers I usually say EYE- key-a but when speaking to Germans in German I say it without the initial dipthong more like an English pronunciation of the fifth letter "e". Speaking to non-native speakers of English in English I use the Swedish pronunciation. I saw Lego in images on your screen but you didn't mention them an interesting Danish company and the name comes from the Danish Leg godt meaning play well.
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  29. I went to school everyday on double-decker buses from 1973 to 1979 I took a bus into the city where the school was then took a second bus from the city centre to my school. Four journeys a day - this was not in London but in West Yorkshire. As the journey into the city was forty-five minutes I used to do a lot of French and Latin vocabulary learning They are suitable for writing essays etc. on though LOL
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  30. Can I recommend a series from the BBC in the 1980s called the Beer Hunter It was a series of six half-hour programmes by the beer correspondent of the Huddersfield Examiner (my home town LOL) I think their are six episodes - typical for a short documentary series on the BBC. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAvEKxWI-6vSYgondk4rTzeURcS4kgkzJ It covers US beer, British beer, Czech beer (Bohemia), German beer and Belgian beer. Enjoy!
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  31. I live in Bielefeld above the Aldi equator I have never been in an Aldi Süd in Germany only Aldi Nord.
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  32. and we get Trader Joe's products in our Aldis
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  33. A "voiture sans permis" that has been reviewed a lot is a Citroen Ami seriously weird vehicles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=977cZO0qXEs
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  34.  @mmhdata  Because Orangina always had a premium price it was a treat / luxury reserved for holidays
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  35. I worked in a small town in Germany called Oelde and several times a week you got the smell of the brewery because my classroom was right next to the local brewery I like the smell of brewing but I don't drink so I couldn't comment on whether this local beer was any good.
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  36. My experience of Swedish driving has been of being a pedestrian in various Swedish towns and cities and my impression was that Swedes drive very carefully and my feeling was that if they saw you crossing the road on a pedestrian crossing half a kilometre away they slowed visibly and approached with caution.
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  37. Here we get "a letter from Flensburg" if you get caught speeding and you pay the fine. Flensburg is a city on the German Danish border where the headquarters for speed cameras is based. I speeded in Hesse in a car-sharing car and they paid the penalty and billed us.
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  38. White zig-zag road markings are typically found either side of pedestrian crossings. They indicate that parking and overtaking in these zones is strictly prohibited so that the view is not obstructed for pedestrians. They were placed at either side of the Zebra (an American Ped Xing - you and your Chinese names LOL) crossings in 1971 and they were then added to Pelican crossings (PEdestrian LIght CONtrolled crossing) much later during the 1980s. So the lights you see are to enable pedestrians to cross. BTW - once or twice a year I had to go to Swindon and the location I had to go to was close to the Magic Roundabout. It was straight forward to use as long as you saw it as FIVE mini-roundabouts (where roundabout rules apply) linked together.
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  39. Small ones I associate with birthday parties as a kid. You can make a Beef Wellington for the festive season. Basically a giant posh sausage roll LOL
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  40. The company is based in Eutin.
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