One Thing, Leading To Another

Clement Freud is Sigmund Freud's nephew. Freud (Sigmund, that is) wrote a paper on Paranoia and Obsessive Neuroses. Paranoid by Black Sabbath is so popular in Finland it is requested at gigs no matter who's playing - in the same way 'Freebird' is called out at U.S. concerts. Finland are a nation which enjoys a friendly rivalry with its neighbour, Sweden, primarily driven by people confusing Finnish traditions with Swedish ones (e.g. the sauna). This is a problem also experienced by New Zealanders, who everyone thinks are Australian, despite the 2 nations being thousands of miles apart. Any event involving Australia and New Zealand is known as Trans-Tasman. This derives from the countries' location on either side of the Tasman sea, which like Tasmania is named after explorer Abel Tasman. Enfield in North London (bear with me) is also named after an individual - its name means 'Eana's land'. The first ATM cash dispenser in the world was installed in Enfield. Germany currently has more ATMs than any other country in Europe, but Spain has the most per habitant. Spain also has the best football league in Europe, whatever Sky bloody Sports says. League chiefs are doing their best to put the kibosh on this, however, by forcing all teams to play the 'Big Four' (in a league where the Big Four does change occasionally) in a row. The run of fixtures, nicknamed the Tourmalet after a mountain in the Pyrenees, requires each team to play Real Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla and Villarreal in a row twice a year. Only Valladolid, a team I have actually seen play in the flesh, have even won a game in their 4-game stint. The game before the Tourmalet might be seen as an hors d'oeuvre - except in Spain it would be called a Picadita, or perhaps more recognisably, tapas. In Hawaii, hors d'oeuvres are known as puu-puu. Hawaii is 2000 miles away from the U.S. mainland, but became a state in 1959, mainly to prevent exploitation of labour by granting Hawaiian citizens full voting rights. Another equally distant colony, Greenland, which lies 2200 miles from Denmark, has recently voted for greater autonomy from its rulers. Greenland is the most sparsely populated territory on Earth, with a population of 57,564 people spread over an area of 2,166,086 square kilometres. That's roughly equivalent to the population of Tooting being given the entirety of Mexico to set up home in. It's pretty roomy up there.