OT Are these people mental or what?

I don't know if the Ordnance Survey is classed as a public body and would have to change all their maps (or at least the ones sold in Scotland).

Owain

It happens that harry formulated :

Sanity check - no its not 1st April..

Easy solution - just leave Shetland off the map of Scotland.

It was all over the news last night. I do understand their annoyance, but to me they could easily have written a few words on the map and then printed enlarged views. To get them in to scale means making the map smaller as far as the uk is concerned. It is very true that not many people appreciate how far away they actually are from the mainland. I've never been there, but apparently by sea its often not a comfortable trip. Brian

Well the guy on BBC radio last night was from that esteemed company, for it is now a company, and he said about it would simply result in the map having more sea and less land in it. Brian

I think your view may change if you lived there. What about the Channel Isles. Should we leave France of the map there perhaps? Brian

Just put an arrow on the map with 125 miles under it and leave it off altogether? and say buy an extra map of shetland itself if interested, or supply a map of Shetland on a post it note with the main map.

The link shown last night went to a page that had this at the bottom:

"A spokesman for the Ordnance Survey mapping agency added: ?The Shetland Islands are approximately 245km (152 miles) from the Scottish mainland, from the most northerly part of the Shetland Islands to John O' Groats, and 690km (428 miles) from the most southerly point of the Scottish and English border.

"It would be virtually impossible to print a paper map, with any usable detail, of this vast geography."

The new rules will not apply to the Ordnance Survey or to private publishes."

Overnight trip by sea.

Flat as a millpond when we went, but that was in May. Didn't stop it only being 7C and wet, however, but I did get to share an umbrella with the Norwegian Prime Minister's wife. He was there to open a new museum about the Shetland Bus.

Brian Gaff laid this down on his screen :

Well, the other solution would be to simply leave them off the map completely, as they do with other UK islands. They are on the maps, what is the issue (and I have friends there)?

:-) lol

Just wait till the Falkland islanders start making the same demand.

Cheers

My wife came up with a better one - why not a map of the Shetlands with Scotland in a box in the corner?

Many people don't realise that there are parts of Scotland further from Edinburgh than Edinburgh is from London.

Mike

Same answer I'd give to those who ask why all national news is so SE biased. Because that's where the most people live, by area.

Of course if Shetlanders want to pay for their own local TV service, etc, I'm sure they'd have no trouble finding a company to do it.

We do as we enjoyed motorcycling round many of them, from London to JoG and Dunnet Head. ;-)

Daughter stayed with her b/f and his family up in Castle Douglas for a few months and it was interesting to see the sort of distances they would travel without batting an eye. 45 mile round trip from CD to Dumfries just to get a new headlamp bulb for the Rover when we stayed up there one Xmyth. I could walk to a car spares (/ pretty well anything) place down here. ;-)

We also learned that there isn't a cashpoint every 100 yards up there, and that most petrol stations weren't open 24/7 (especially on a Sunday). ;-(

Cheers, T i m

Yeah but they aren't very important are they, perhaps a few people and lots of bird s*it.

Perhaps its a conspiracy to be left off the Scottish map altogether. Didn't the Shetlands vote solidly to stay in the UK?

Maybe many Shetlanders would be quite happy to be out of Scotland.