The Hampton Court Estate dates back to before the 15th Century. The estate was originally formed by merging of the manors of Hampton Richard and Hampton Mappenor. It was granted by Henry IV to Sir Rowland Lenthall at the time of his marriage to Margaret Fitzalan, daughter of the Earl of Arundel and a cousin…

The World’s Largest Islands Rank Island (location) Area in mi² Area in km² 1. Greenland 822,700 2,130,800 2. Papua (New Guinea) (Papua New Guinea-Indonesia) 309,000 800,000 3. Borneo (Indonesia-Malaysia-Brunei) 283,400 734,000 4. Madagascar 226,658 587,041 5. Baffin (Canada) 195,928 507,451 6. Sumatera (Sumatra)(Indonesia) 167,600 434,000 7. Honshu (Japan) 87,805 227,414 8. Victoria (Canada) 83,897 217,291…

China's mainland will become the world's biggest supplier of tourists by 2020, according to a recently released report by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. As many as 115 million Chinese mainland citizens are expected to travel overseas in 2010, higher than the World Tourism Organization's estimate of 100 million, the report said. Outbound travellers from the mainland…

Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers could be at risk from attack. The US navy admits…

Meeting news from our branches.

The November meeting took place back at The Church of Scotland, now that most of the building work has been completed. Our first speaker was Tom Fremantle who endeavoured to follow in the footsteps of Scottish explorer Mungo Park down the Niger river. Tom's excellent talk took in some of the sights of Senegal, Mali,…

For information on Ontario meetings, please contact Svatka Hermanek: shermanek@schulich.yorku.ca or Bruce Weber: tel. 416-203-0911 or Paul Webb: tel. 416-694-8259. Meetings are held on the third Friday of January, March, May, September and November. Usually at the Woodsworth Co-op, Penthouse, 133, Wilton Street in downtown Toronto at 8.00 p.m.

London Open House day back in September was lovely and sunny. The Beetle was not in the country to accompany Padmasana as she usually does, to various places around central London to look around buildings opened to the public for one or two days only, culminating in a good fry up at the 24hr greasy…

The Jenolan Caves are around 164 kilometres from Sydney, in the Blue Mountains. They are set in a valley on the far side of the Great Dividing Range and 793 metres above sea level. I drove to the Jenolan caves from Mt Victoria. The drive took far longer than I anticipated because the road becomes…

On October 8th, an earthquake around 7.6 on the Richter scale hit close to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Over 80,000 people have died, at least 80,000 injured and 3.3 million people are homeless and trying to survive in icy conditions. Why is it that the world has been so slow to respond with aid? The…