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

I agree with Autist's earlier post:
The more I learn, the less I know...

Populations over a hundred million?
hmm, bad guess list:
India
China
Russia
U.S.
Brazil
Turkey
Mexico
Ethiopia
Egypt
Namibia?

*barges in without reading backlog*

Q: How would I define someone who can't tell the difference between Austria and Australia?

A: Presidential Candidate

B

Here, let me warm that turkey for you...

Turkey? I prefer Albania...

B

cold-Albania just wouldn't look the same in your nickname...

Cold-Albania is just like cold-turkey, only it costs less, and the food's not as good.

B

But at least it doesn't have Greece all over it.

It's a good quiz quetion, the ten countries over 100 million. Most people are hard pressed to name the two over 1000 million.

I'd definitely add Indonesia to the above list.

B

The list can be found here A767306 - All the countries of the world are listed in order of population size

I have to confess to an adolescent experience. In my troubled yoof I had difficultly differentiating betwixt Sweden and Switzerland; at least until I was old enough to own a Volvo and wear a watch.

Strangely enough just a few days ago, Mycroft had me flummoxed with a reference to Cyprus which I immediately confused with Ceylon. And as for Tasmania and Tanzania...

dislexically yores
~jwf~

I used to work as the British Telecom International call centre and lots of the other operators had no idea that Ghana and Guyana were different countries, never mind on different continents! Any one wanting Guyana would automatically be put through to Ghana because it was a more popular call destination!

I have walked into many new job experiences, hoping to learn something.
The sum of my learning: bring your lunch, but leave your brain at home.
I have often been told: Don't ask so many questions! Just get on with it!

Having seen David Baddiel's stand-up, where he demonstrates just how many telephone sex lines terminate in Guyana, I find the last-but-one post hard to believe.

B

Ah, but are 900 lines handled by operators?

That's probably why they end up in Slovakia, when it should have been Slovenia.

There's a place in Newfoundland called Argentia, that used to make the news quite a bit, being a huge USAF base during WW2 and for many long years after; the base of many North Atlantic rescue missions and American military operations and the first (or last) North American landfall for transatlantic flights.
Every time I heard or read the name I had to consciously remind myself (not always succesfully) that Argentia is not the South American country of similar spelling.

~jwf~

I have to admit that I have never heard of it.