h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Orkney: An Introduction - A7122331
Author: Frenchbean with 5 <star>s, determined to reclaim my star - U236943

Hello Peerers

Here we go with a huge tome on Orkney: another in my series. This time an intro, to fit into Paully's project of stuff about all the counties of Britain.

Peer and comment please.

I'm off for a and a lie-down


Five Frenchbean

Looks great!

"amongst a myriad other birds" -> "amongst a myriad of other birds"

You also refer to the "flukes" of whales - preseumably you mean "flumes"? Also, did you mention what species of whales they are?

More in a minute, my paste function only allows me to copy and past one thing at a time...

"where St Magnus was buried after being slain at the behest of his cousin in 1117." Does this mean that his cousin ordered St Magnus slain, or that his cousin ordered him buried there after his death?


What are "Great Northern Divers"?

"Orkney's International Airport, where flights land from mainland UK, Europe and from whence you can jump on a small local plane. Indeed from here you can end up on the shortest scheduled flight in the world. Fly up to Westray, then fly the 90 seconds from Westray Airport to Papa Westray Airport7"

Great story! Are they on different islands, though? If so, you should say so.

You mention "ro-ro"s (I think) somewhere - what are they?

"At Burwick the John O'Groats passenger ferry" -> "At Burwick, the John O'Groats passenger ferry"

Also, worth a link to the TimeTeam website?

That's it from me; this is a fantastic entry!

Thanks for the comments Elentari

To take them one at a time - apart from the obvious typos, which I shall go and correct:

A fluke is the whale's tail. Yes, I mentioned that they're grey and orcas.

"where St Magnus was buried after being slain at the behest of his cousin in 1117." Well, that reads to me that he was slain on the orders of his cousin. What do other Peerers see there? Perhaps a comma after "was buried" would fix it?

Great northern divers are birds - hence the RSPB reserve

Westray is one island and Papa Westray is another and the airports are on each. I'll see what words I can come up with to make that more obvious.

A ro-ro is a roll-on / roll-off ferry. I shall add clarification.

I haven't done any external links yet, but Time Team will definitely be one of them

Fb

I read it as you meant it fb - but I knew about it anyway, so that's not really a fair test.

Looking good though - I love the way you encourage tourism "grey skies and horizontal rain are common"

Isn't Scapa Flow a designated War Grave or something ?

Now you mention it, I've heard of a whale's tail before. That'll teach me for trying to be too clever.

Glad you like the weather comments Cyzaki I do think that prospective visitors should understand that it's the north Atlantic we're talking about here!

Only the wreck of the Royal Oak is a war grave...not the whole of Scapa.

Elentari - don't worry at all. When you mentioned it, I did go and look it up, just to make sure I wasn't talking/writing through my bottom <laugh.

Wasn't me! It was McKay who said they liked the weather comments! Not me at all guv!

Oh gawd It's late here and I'm being distracted by the tennis.

Apologies to both Cyzaki and McKay.

I think I'll call it a day.



Fb

Oh, I'm so jealous, I don't have Eurosport or anything. I assume you're watching the Master's Cup? Who's winning?

I haven't actually read the entry yet, but I noticed one thing: 'from whence' is redundant. It should be just 'whence', or 'from where'.

Hopefully I'll be back to read it properly soon.

Thanks emr - changed

Hi there,

Great entry - I've always wanted to visit Orkney but never got round to it; now I'm even more anxious to do so.

Just one grammatical correction:

'Had you taken the A961 route out of Kirkwall, you pass the Highland Park Distillery...' should be either 'Had you taken the A961 route out of Kirkwall, you would have passed...' or 'If you take the...'

Glad to have inspired you Casper

Shall and amend that sentence now...

Looks good

I'm not sure about having the Foreword header though - the start of an entry is by default the introduction or foreword.

I wondered about that too Alex. I'll take it out and see how it looks