"Beefy's Corner".......For all off Topic threads

Please don't judge countries based on suicide rates, as they have little to no reflection on quality of life. It's easier to commit suicide in certain places over others, and it's also strongly linked to a lack of religion. Religious people are far less likely to commit suicide.

 

Now that I have read Beddy's massive post, I have to say that it is a very inspiring story and belongs somewhere a little classier than this thread.

 

---Lake District
---Algarve
---Amalfi coast or --Munich.

 

UK isn't more religious than Germany.

 

Congratulations on the very selective pictures.

 

But Spain, Italy and Portugal are far more religious than Germany, Sweden and Norway aren't they.

 

Don't think he'll be replying.

 

Even with the selective pictures, it just tells me one thing about the Portugal coastline. It's the same as every other cheap Mediterranean destination. It's nice enough, sure, but far from being impressive or the slightest bit original.

 

you silly little boy. I didn't say that at all. In fact I made no reference to the best country or a country being bad. That was you.

 

I see banana has been banned again. That boy seems to be going for the record

 

All this talk about Europe makes me want to go InteRailing.

Wish I had someone to go with though (female or otherwise, I'm not bothered)!

 

oops. I missed that he'd been banned. Well spotted.

 

I'm planning to do that in the next year or so. Having someone else to go with isn't totally necessary as you'd meet tons of people wherever you go, especially if you stay in cheap hostels in cities. I've met tons of awesome people that way.

 

Thanks for that Joe..it is appreciated.......Strangely I have not related that story for a very long, long time.....Probably from my school days. I once did an essay based on my time over in Germany at school I think it was just after I had taken my 11+ exam.
The school entered it into some national competition for which I got a third prize. The prize was £10 plus a pencil case, a meccano set and a chemistry set. Which in the 50's was a hell of a lot.
My mother said the headmaster had read it out in the school assembly a little while later.(unfortunately I was off school for about 3 months with some sort of illness that they never really got to the bottom of) He had found it in a national news paper I haven't a clue which one. All the three winning entries were in there apparently.

 

After seeing Joe's post, I just went back to search out Beddy's.

Wow, just wow. That is an incredible story. I have always taken a big interest in WWII. when I was a child we had a holocaust survivor come in and talk to us. Since then I have always been fascinated by it.
English history lessons are very ethnocentric and ignore the aftermath of the War on Germany. It annoys me when blinkered people spout ill-thought out opinions on other countries like "Germany brought in on themselves." Its a terrible way of thinking, as war ravages entire populations and no-one has a choice in the matter.

The other thing I want to add; PompeyLapras, ****ing go for it mate! You will meet so many people at hostels, I promise you. Just got back from a month long drive across Europe. Although I went with a mate, I can't stress how many people you meet in hostels. Everyone there is travelling on their own, meaning everyone is looking for friends! I went out in Florence with about 20 people after being there one night. Honestly, don't let not having someone to go with hold you back.

 

Ah I see Banana has been banned again, what did he do this time?.

 

As it happens, a few days ago I was in Poland and took the opportunity, indeed I felt obliged, to visit Auswitz. It was overwhelming in many ways, but it be would be ridiculous to feel anger towards people who had not been born at the time the outrages were being commited, but it really reinforced my view that racism must be opposed at every opportunity. There is no excuse for lumping millions of people together and labelling them. Where it leads is a very dark place indeed.

 

Never been to Germany, but would like to visit. I use to to be into my history and was very interested in going to see the camps and learning even more. Hoping to take my dad to Belgium to go to the Tyne Cot Cemetery and the Menin Gate.

 

Tyne Cot is heart breaking and you must go to the Menin Gate at around 6.00 pm when they have a small group of local men play the last post and flowers are placed on the memorial. Last time I was there a lot of English secondary schoolchildren were placing flowers and they all had tears streaming down their faces.

On one occassion when I was there they had a Scots Piper marching back and forth through the gate and the arches playing Flowers of the Forest. The hairs on the back of my head stood on end.

 

Funnily enough I did go to the Menin gate a few years ago with my school, and we were there for the last post. By a complete coincidence it happened to be the Belgian National Day or something like that, so there was quite a large ceremony with some men lowering their standards at the gate, there was a large crowd of not all tourists which I am sure would not happen here for a ceremony that has happened every day since the 1920s. It must be completely different to know that it was your street, town or country that they were fighting in.