The *where* now?

[mrissa]

The book I'm reading begins,

"Since the history of the capital city of Britain's dearest ally has never* been told in the English language, I have ventured--greatly daring--to repair that regrettable omission."

*as of 1955.

Guess what city I'm reading about.

Comments

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Hmmm I'm going to say Cleopolis.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I'll guess Paris, though I'd be stunned if there were no English-language histories of that city prior to 1955.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I'm going the snarky route and say: The US.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Yes, for had they meant Ottawa, they would have phrased it differently.

...oh, surely not Edinburgh.

[dhole.livejournal.com]

Moscow?

I think the funniest part is the number of cities it couldn't possibly be.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I gave the copyright date mostly to rule out some of the options; timprov guessed Kyoto until I said the year.

[mastadge.livejournal.com]

Knowing you, and guessing that it's not going to be the obvious, I'm going with somewhere Nordic. Sweden? Norway? Denmark?

[mastadge.livejournal.com]

Whoops. Cities. Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen?

[joeboo-k.livejournal.com]

This is tough, because you'd think that a British writer would also consider historical conflicts before saying "dearest" - which makes me wonder who can possibly be left.

Bern.

But I really want to say Madrid. Except the writer would have to have been in an opium den, with a hookah in hand, to refer to Madrid in that manner.

[joeboo-k.livejournal.com]

I'd also be stunned for an Englishman to refer to France as "Britain's dearest ally" :)

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Lisbon - though oldest, rather than dearest, I would have said.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

That's why I picked it! The header on Mrissa's post makes me think the country in question is one that was not usually viewed as their dearest ally.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

In 1955? Riyadh.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Ooh.

[mkille.livejournal.com]

I also would guess Lisbon, and then just to play the odds, Helsinki.

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

It's certainly not Dublin.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

1955? Close enough to the end of the war to be Washington D.C. in the U.S. and for the feelings between the two countries to still be warm and fuzzy, especially with the cold war going on, which rules out Moscow. Not Paris, France, ever. Not any country in the commonwealth either.

I think I'm stumped. I can not imagine who a British writer would call a dearest ally. :/

The *where* now?

[coho29.livejournal.com]

Cardiff? Delhi?

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

That was my guess because it was so interestingly not right.

[katallen.livejournal.com]

Well there is the possibility the author meant 'not the cheapest' as in costliest :)

(I just can't quite go with Washington DC not having an English language history - unless, of course, they meant in English not Amglish :D )

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Lisbon?

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

On the other hand: Belfast is not technically a part of Britain.

"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

So....

I'm going with Belfast.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Cape Town?

[zunger.livejournal.com]

Barsoom?

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Elfland?

Re: The *where* now?

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

I was going to say Delhi! Closest ally = Imperial underlings.

[skzbrust.livejournal.com]

Budapest, of course.

[biguglymandoll.livejournal.com]

In 1955, with no English language history? I was going to go with Cairo, but I'm sure there was an English history... I give.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

I'm going with Moscow or Capetown, for greatest irony. So...?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Ah, that was my thought, too. Do we have any dear allies? I'd have thought we were too superior for that!

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Wonderful idea!

[rmnilsson.livejournal.com]

I ran this past my British coworker (who was a child in 1955). Her responses were probably more interesting than mine, so here they are...

She didn't think any Brit would use the word "ally" for a Commonwealth country, like Canada or Australia - they're closer than that. She made a face at the notion of France, and thought that was too soon after WWII for anyone in Britain to use that term for Germany. She didn't think anywhere in South America or Asia would be powerful enough in 1945 to warrant that kind of closeness with the UK.

She then spent a few minutes pondering whether that would be too far into the Cold War for it to be Moscow. Also whether someone would post this question if the answer would be the predictable answer of Washington DC.

So, assuming this author's notion of "dearest ally" is not far from the general British notions of the time, and assuming they actually identified the city as capitol correctly (i.e. it's not New York City), my guesses are Washington DC and Moscow.

[cattitude.livejournal.com]

I'll go with New Delhi. It was (technically) established as a city in 1911. Most capital cities were enough older than that that someone would have written about them in English somewhere along the line.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

Throw me in the Delhi group.

[avocadovpx.livejournal.com]

Me too.