[06x06] July 3rd, 2005

boafan said:
Law said:
marcos_eirik said:
Law said:
For the official name, they made a compromise. ?resundsbron.
Sounds very swedish to me, but then it isn't the first time in history you danes has lost something to the swedes... :p

Very swedish - except from the fact that it starts with a letter that DOESN'T EXIST IN SWEDISH! ;)

Btw. the traffic on the bridge is mostly Swedes comming to Denmark. To buy beer :p

I won't talk bad about Norway, since many Norwegians are extremely proud of their country, and would probably be hurt. ;)

I don't like nationalism anyway. And I don't feel proud or ashamed about what Danes I don't know or are related to, do or did before I was born.

gasp! what is this? both of you, enlighten me on this losing out to the swedes. I always thought that part of the world was pretty much neutral throughout recent history. what did norway do? what did denmark do? oh dear...
Not recent, you have to go som centuries back in time...

From the 11th century and onwards, Norway was really a big superpower in Scandinavia. We ruled over Gr?nland, most of Britain, F?r?yene and big parts of Sweden. This however turned dramaticly in the year 1349, when the "black death" came to Scandinavia, it was a plague that killed 2/3 of the population in Norway, and those who where killed was the intellectual litterate part of the population. Therefore Norway went from being the strongest to a role as the weak link. The whole of Scandinavia was gathered under the same union, the Kalmar union, of which the swedes managed to keep a certain distance from, Norway on the other hand fell deeper and deeper into danish rule because people employed for administrative positions in Norway was danes. In 1537 came the "Norgesparagrafen" which said that "From now and forever Norway was a part of Denmark just like Fyn, Sj?lland and Bornholm." This led Norway into the long "400 year night" as it's called in Norway.

It still wasn't peace in Scandinavia, as the swedes built up their forces. From 1611 to 1613 we had the Kalmar war which the danes lost. then the swedes fought against Russia, and won, then they conquered large parts around the East sea. Later on there were more wars between Denmark and Sweden and the result was that the danes lost all of them and had to give up Jemtland, Herjedalen and B?huslen the swedes came as long as into Copenhagen the last time befor Denmark surrendered. The Norwegian border as it is today was drawn in 1750 with some compromises narrowly eccepted by the swedes.

But after 1800 the whole of Europe was in tension as Napoleon built up forces. Then, the danes made a mistake and joined Napoleon wheras the swedes joined the other side. This was a war Napoleon was expected to win come what may, but somehow he didn't. He made the same mistake Hitler did a 150 years later, he underestimated the Russian winter. Which meant he came back with just some 20000 soliders of an army of more than 600000 men. When Napoleon was defeated after the battle of Waterloo, denmark had to pay wardebt to the winning powers. They could not afford this without giving away something precious, their jewel in the crown, Norway. On the 17th of May 1814 Norway got it's own constitution after much debate. And from december 1814 and onwards Norway was in union with sweden.

The danes wasn't finished though, as danish contiued to be the administrative language in Norway as they wanted to keep a certain distance from the swedes. The swedes however, never tried to push the swedish language on to the norwegian population becaus they knew it was impossible just like trying to rule Norway with feudalism. Norway was as good as independent, because whe had our own government and constitution, but the foreign politics was ruled from Sweden and the king was swedish. As it closed up to 1905 Norway got stronger and stronger untill we got our freedom that year. That's the reason for all the norwegian smugness this year, because it is a 100 years since we got our independence. From 1905 we even got our own King (Haakon VII)

After WW2 Norway was in ruins, but whe got "Marshal" help from the US (Thanks... :thumbsup: ) and finally, in 1969 we found oil, and the year later we found out that it was one of the 10 biggest reseres of oil in the world. This meant that Norway could build up a huge fortune over a few years and pay back uor foreign debt, as well as building up a welfare state. At the moment Norway has more money on book than Sweden and Denmark has in debt together and that's what we are so smug about...

I hope this clared things up, and didn't annoy anyone...
 
boafan said:
gasp! what is this? both of you, enlighten me on this losing out to the swedes. I always thought that part of the world was pretty much neutral throughout recent history. what did norway do? what did denmark do? oh dear...

About 500 years ago, the Danish kingdom included Sweden, Norway, Finland and more. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalmar_Union

Sweden restored sovereignty in 1523, and that was the end of the Kalmar Union.

In 1658 Denmark had to give up, what is southern Sweden today(Terra Scania/Sk?neland) in the Treaty of Roskilde.
(also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Denmark#Early_Modern_Politics)

In the Napoleonic wars, Denmark chose what would become the loosing side, the French. Denmark was to give up Norway to Sweden in the Treaty of Kiel in 1814. But neither Norway nor Denmark was happy about that and Norway got its independence.

The Danish kingdom today includes Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

You are right, that in recent times, there haven't been any wars between the Scandinavian countries.
 
Who said you never learn anything on the internet!

I'm one generation removed from Norway, my father was an immigrant. The entirety of my father's side of the family still lives in Norway, in a town called Larkollen (about 30 min. south of Moss, which is, in turn, about 30 min. south of Oslo, or at least 30 min. given how my father drives). This has been an excellent history lesson on my heritage, and I give my thanks!

Oh, and to bring this back on topic, this episode ruled!
 
here is some more norwegian history..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway
and if you want to learn more .. here is som other relevant things
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavia (nice ... thing at the end there)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden

PS: give us our land back!
( Iceland, Greenland, Faroe Islands, Shetland, the Orkneys, and the parts of sweden they stole from us!)

look at this.. Norway in 1261
1261.gif

(iceland became a part of norway on year later.. but i chould not find a mapof it)
and look at norway now..
1905.gif

WE WANT OUR LAND BACK! :D

PS; the Orkneys still uses the Kalmar Union flag (the people uses the flag.. its not official)

:p :p :p :p :p :p
 
They can keep Greenland, Hjemtland and Herjedalen. We don't want those.
 
tloekke said:
They can keep Greenland, Hjemtland and Herjedalen. We don't want those.
Yep, but we could get Bohuslen back though. But as the progression of norwegian summerhouses continues Bohuslen would be Norwegian, it's just a matter of time anyway... :lol:
 
driedees said:
great episode. loved the race, altough it seemed a bit staged to me.
come on, two boats breaking down... spectacular television tough.
D

Yeah, seems very unlikely IMO too!

fbc said:
Edit: Just realised something - why did they start the race at Heathrow? Last race was started away from the airport (at the TG studio I think) and Hammond & May had to bus it to the airport first. Seems a bit unfair to start them at the airport.

They plan the races very carefully and were probably hoping for a photo finish.
I'm glad though this race did not have it, that would've been number 3. :roll:
If it really just didn't work out, maybe the last photo finishes were actually real...

Ka24de said:
There were no new car reviews,

Yeah, can't believe only 2 of you pointed this out. :shock:
Amazingly there was no car review in this episode, not one!!

I do find the other bits (like races or challenges) entertaining too, except for most of the stars in a reasonably priced car, stupid stunts and that sorta stuff.
But it would be also very nice to see them actually review a car, in a 1 hour long (!) show about cars. In fact, I'd like to see them review several cars each week...

cya
Oliver
 
oliB said:
But it would be also very nice to see them actually review a car, in a 1 hour long (!) show about cars. In fact, I'd like to see them review several cars each week...
But that's what you were expecting them to do... :shifty:
 
oliB said:
driedees said:
great episode. loved the race, altough it seemed a bit staged to me.
come on, two boats breaking down... spectacular television tough.
D

Yeah, seems very unlikely IMO too!

fbc said:
Edit: Just realised something - why did they start the race at Heathrow? Last race was started away from the airport (at the TG studio I think) and Hammond & May had to bus it to the airport first. Seems a bit unfair to start them at the airport.

They plan the races very carefully and were probably hoping for a photo finish.
I'm glad though this race did not have it, that would've been number 3. :roll:
If it really just didn't work out, maybe the last photo finishes were actually real...

Ka24de said:
There were no new car reviews,

Yeah, can't believe only 2 of you pointed this out. :shock:
Amazingly there was no car review in this episode, not one!!

I do find the other bits (like races or challenges) entertaining too, except for most of the stars in a reasonably priced car, stupid stunts and that sorta stuff.
But it would be also very nice to see them actually review a car, in a 1 hour long (!) show about cars. In fact, I'd like to see them review several cars each week...

cya
Oliver

The Monaco race wasn't as close as it appeared to be. Clarkson arrived 45min before, IIRC. I think he told so in one of his articles on the Times.
 
This has always bugged me...how do they get all those camera shots from the street angles? and alot of the car shots? if the SLR is goint 120+ a range rover can't keep up...or do they have alot of cars they meet up with it and drive?
 
Dark_Templer_102 said:
This has always bugged me...how do they get all those camera shots from the street angles? and alot of the car shots? if the SLR is goint 120+ a range rover can't keep up...or do they have alot of cars they meet up with it and drive?
Read page 2 and 3 of this thread and your question will be answered ! Or if you are impatient: they do it on the return trip :bangin:
 
m0nk3y said:
does anyone know where i can get a wallpaper of the SLR over the bridge? cant remember the name of the bridge

The answer is in this thread :) ?resundsbron

I don't know if there is a wallpaper with the SLR on the bridge. TopGear would have had to take some photos of it to get a high res. picture.
 
tloekke said:
They can keep Greenland, Hjemtland and Herjedalen. We don't want those.

They have recently found gold on Greenland. And it is an important area from a military strategic point of view. The worlds biggest island. 8)

But I would rather have it totally independant. A lot of money is transfered from Danish taxpayers to Greenland. 2 politicians from Greenland and 2 from the Faroe Islands have seats in the Danish parlament. And both of the politicians in the Danish parlament from Greenland are socialist. So it doesn't actually help reducing the taxes. The politicians want money to bring to Greenland and hand out. :(
 
^^Learn to use the edit button... 2 posts may sometimes be acceptable, but 3 in a row...

Buba
 
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