Airborne_Again wrote:
One factor I believe is important is that in Scandinavia movies are never dubbed – always subtitled (except for children’s movies).
Side note. This is an interesting point I always make about Portugal and Spain. Back in the 40s, a Portuguese dictator decided to subtitle all movies. As half of the population couldn’t read or write, the dictatorship ensured that “foreign ideas” wouldn’t be introduced into the country. As a result, still today, we don’t dubb movies and that helps Portuguese people to learn English.
Our neighbours in Spain suffered from the opposite. All movies were dubbed and we might all agree that it’s not always easy to speak English in Spain.
@Fernando Portugal has been the UK’s longest ally, the longest alliance in history. :)
https://www.portugal.com/history-and-culture/anglo-portuguese-alliance-the-worlds-oldest-alliance/
That’s an interesting point about movies being dubbed or sub titled. I hadn’t thought about how that impacted on the percentage of the population who speak English.
Certainly in France which has more cinemas than the rest of Europe combined, most English/American movies are dubbed whereas non English language movies are often subtitled.
Nowadays, with digital tv channels many movies and tv series are advertised as available in version original so you can watch the dubbed version, push a button and watch the original language version and add the subtitles in French. This might account for the young French who speak English with an American twang.🙂
In the context of why it was brought up (why the UK would never have joined Schengen because of migration pull) I don’t believe the nuance of being able to manage quite well in Scandinavia on English alone matters much.
To the migrants concerned, that nuance is probably beyond anything they are thinking about and it likely boils down to a much simpler “in England they speak English, in Sweden they speak Swedish” world view. Hence the UK pull based on language, hence the UK never likely to operate open borders.
Graham wrote:
I heard of various impractical obstacles being placed in the way, such as requirements for dedicated Border Force parking, an indoor workspace / waiting room, availability of toilets, published opening hours and a manned reception desk, telephone line, etc. The
I was one of the first to apply and the process was quite easy. It took maybe and hour online to complete the application process. The they will make a visit. They were happy to accept a simple hand drawn map of the farm strip. There was no requirement for dedicated parking, indoor workspace, waiting room, telephone, or published hours. As far as toilet availability I showed them a toilet in my house 200 m away and in an ancillary shed and they were happy with that. They wanted somewhere to do “intimate searches” so I showed them a small lambing shed full of hay bales. For a desk they were happy with a piece of board on trestles. Lets face it, the likelihood that they will EVER show up at a farm strip is practically nil. Oh, they did want me to install a locked letter box (£10 on Amazon) to receive all the customs declarations that I am going to post. For a laugh I had a huge sign made up “Upper Harford Airport – International Arrivals” and have hung it on the side of the hangar.
I have a very private grass strip from which I have been travelling to nearby Europe, the Isle of Man, Channel Islands and Ireland for about 40 years. It is not a commercial operation and has no facilities other than my rudimentary hanger. Border force have now issued the following to which I would appreciate your advice and help please:
Looks like fairly easy hoops to jump through given Buckerfan’s post above.
Buckerfan’s post is certainly food for thought. I have already been visited by 2 very nice people from BF and my quote above is the result! Time will tell if I can make it happen. So maybe I could route via one of the farm strips ( with owners permission of course) and that could satisfy BF???
1. Sir/Lady Fenland Flyer
2. N/A
3. N/A
4. You will need to apply to HMRC for this but it should be trivial to get.
5. Fenland Airport, secret place, Fenland,UK
6. Only my personal aircraft is allowed to use the airfield. No other aircraft uses the field. Flights are mainly domestic UK flights with occasional flight to Ireland, Isle of Mann ,Channel Islands, Europe.
7. Approximately 50 flights per year with approximately 5 which are non domestic.
8. Only myself and my passengers and their personal belongings. No freight, firearms, pets etc and nothing which requires a customs declaration.
9. None.
10. There is a hangar available to provide privacy and shelter from the elements. As it’s only myself and my invited passengers who will be using the field, and this is sufficient for us. Three is ample parking room at the strip. There is no on-site toilet but there is a toilet available nearby at xxxx. (If this turns out to be a sticking point, you could buy a camping toilet to meet the conditions. )
11. No flights requiring a customs declaration will operate from the field. However is such a box is required, I will provide one. (Get a cheap one from amazon as buckerfan did).
I don’t see anything difficult about this. I think you’re over thinking it and imagining them requiring fancy push facilities, when in fact they are just trying to make sure that they can do their job and won’t turn up to find there is no room to stop their car for instance or they have to conduct a search outside in the pouring rain.
Thank you dublinpilot, you have given me hope 
