Map Man
I like looking at maps.
I find it strangely comforting to examine the name places of countries and continents I'll probably never visit. From the Siberian wasteland to the Mexican coast, I could look at them for hours.
In fact, I'm almost sexually attracted to Ordnance Survey maps. They are the epitome of class.
Last night I discovered the best placename yet. A small town on the Donegal coast in Northern Ireland called... Muff.
Are the people who live there Muffers?
As it's on the coast, there is a chance it has a diving school - The Muff Diving School!
I would gladly pay good money for a 'Certified Muff Diver' T-shirt.
But that's because under this facade of adult respectability lies an nine-year-old schoolboy chuckling "muff" under his breath.
Oh dear.
I find it strangely comforting to examine the name places of countries and continents I'll probably never visit. From the Siberian wasteland to the Mexican coast, I could look at them for hours.
In fact, I'm almost sexually attracted to Ordnance Survey maps. They are the epitome of class.
Last night I discovered the best placename yet. A small town on the Donegal coast in Northern Ireland called... Muff.
Are the people who live there Muffers?
As it's on the coast, there is a chance it has a diving school - The Muff Diving School!
I would gladly pay good money for a 'Certified Muff Diver' T-shirt.
But that's because under this facade of adult respectability lies an nine-year-old schoolboy chuckling "muff" under his breath.
Oh dear.
posted by St8rk at
7:29 pm
4 Comments:
I have to thank you for making my day get off to such a good start. I want a 'Certified Muff Diver' Tee for my boyfriend! Now!
But then I wiki'd ordnance survey. It's fascinating stuff. Good ol' Major Colby and his six-inches-to-the-mile eh?
"During the next twenty years roughly a third of England and Wales was mapped at the same scale. (...) It was gruelling work: Major Thomas Colby, later the longest serving Director General of the Ordnance Survey, walked 586 miles in 22 days on a reconnaissance in 1819. In 1824, Colby and most of his staff moved to Ireland to work on a six-inches-to-the-mile (1:10,560) valuation survey.
Colby (...) also established a systematic collection of place names, and reorganised the map-making process to produce clear, accurate plans. He believed in leading from the front, travelling with his men, helping to build camps and, as each survey session drew to a close, arranging mountain-top parties with enormous plum puddings."
By
f:lux, at 9:05 am
Enormous plum puddings and certified muff divers! That's a party I want an invite to!!!
By
St8rk, at 9:56 am
And if someone ever does a biopic about Major Colby (and I really think someone should) I would definitely go and see it!
By
f:lux, at 5:57 pm
Hahaha! Nice! There is a similar town in Arkansas called Cooter. A town full of cooters....
unbelieveable.
By
Anonymous, at 9:44 pm
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