Monthly Archives: February 2019

Want to escape the crowds?

Perhaps, like the Travelling Frogs, you are native of a densely populated country. In our case England, which vies with the Netherlands for the title of most densely populated country in Europe. Both have around 415 people per square kilometre*, small in comparison with Singapore (7804 per square kilometre) or Hong Kong (6732) but even so…

So maybe when you travel you like to escape the crowds, in which case maybe the best way is to visit Greenland. The world’s biggest island, not only does it have stunning flora and fauna, an ancient culture, glaciers and hot springs, the midnight sun in the summer and hot springs all year round, but it also boasts the lowest population density in the world.  In fact, rounded to the nearest whole number, the number of people per square kilometre amounts to zero. Yes, zero!

*The Dutch are taller, though

Advanced Russian Language

It’s always nice to be able to drop a colloquialism or two into a conversation, isn’t it?

So, if you happen to be conversing in Russian, and think your companion has not heard what you said, you might exclaim “Has a bear trodden on your ear?”. Or, if he or she appears to be talking nonsense, you might admonish them “Don’t make my socks laugh!”

And, in the event that there is a sudden, unexpected silence, you can wow everyone by exclaiming “Oh, another policeman’s just been born”.