HossC

"Meet" might be an exaggeration. I think I only got there half an hour early, but got lucky with the site I picked. With about 10 minutes to go, the stewards unexpectedly opened a barrier which took us to the edge of the area they were going to be walking around. After that it was just a case of sticking out your arm and hoping they'd shake your hand when the time came. After the walkabout, Charles got to try his hand at hurling with one of our local champions who's known as King Henry. The newspapers liked that in their captions.

As you can imagine, that's been debated for years. The last poll I can find seems to indicate that just over 70% of the UK want to keep the Queen. Prince Charles is heir to the throne, but he's now 68, so he may let the job go to one of his children (if there isn't a referendum). Charles and Camilla visited here earlier in the year, and while I got to shake their hands, I didn't get a chance to ask about his plans for the future .

I know it hasn't been a great year for you, MM, but thanks for keeping this place going.

Roman Catholic is certainly the largest single religion in Northern Ireland. According to Wikipedia, just over 80% of the population are Christian, with roughly half Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian in second place. Here in the Republic of Ireland, about 80% are Roman Catholic. What I find sad about Northern Ireland in the division between the groups. I was in Belfast about a year ago, and found all the people really friendly. I didn't care what religion or allegiance (unionist or nationalist) the people held. While I was there, I did the tourist bus tour, and got to see the so-called "peace lines" - 18 foot barriers which separate the two halves of the community. Building walls really shouldn't be necessary in the 21st Century.

Hobie, I'm originally from England, but I've been living in Ireland for well over a decade. Over here, I'm in the south, and your family (County Down) would be from the north! The island of Ireland may be a good bit smaller than the USA, but you'll still find a good variation in phrases around the 32 counties.

Others may feel differently, but I don't think the UK has a single person or group that's analogous to the Founding Fathers. The original basis for the British constitution is the Magna Carta, which was agreed by King John and signed back in 1215. It's been revised since, but parts of the Magna Carta made it into the United States Constitution. If you stopped people in the street, I'm sure they'd be able to name plenty of kings and queens. Most school children learn about Henry VIII and his six wives (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived). Queen Victoria's reign lasted for over 60 years, and included a time when the British Empire expanded to include India and parts of Africa, so her influence was felt around the world. What you have to remember about kings and queens is that they're hereditary, i.e. not elected, so their influence on the country has been decreasing for a few hundred years. Queen Elizabeth II could technically veto new laws, but her role is largely ceremonial. She does, however, represent the country as a non-political figurehead. In more recent years, the younger royals have taken on more global causes, e.g. Princess Diana led a campaign against land mines, and Prince Harry has been the leading figure behind the Invictus Games. I don't know how many of the names on my lists are familiar to you (I had to look up two or three of the people on the banknotes), but they include a good selection of architects, scientists and literary figures who've shaped the country. I guess Benjamin Franklin fulfills that role within your Founding Fathers.

MUSCADINE wine - (Hobie's drink of choice from "Bye, Bye Boss")

That's quite a wide-ranging question, Roger. When the BBC did a show about the 100 greatest Britons in 2002, the top 10 looked like this: Sir Winston Churchill Isambard Kingdom Brunel Diana, Princess of Wales Charles Darwin William Shakespeare Sir Isaac Newton Elizabeth I John Lennon Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell certainly wouldn't be on any such list in Ireland, but that's another story! I notice that a similar US show in 2005 put Ronald Reagan at #1, with George Washington at #4 (Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. were #2 and #3 respectively). That list also had Albert Einstein at #14, even though he didn't become American until he was around 60-years-old, and Lance Armstrong at #20 (how times change!). If we look at the figures on the England/Wales banknotes (Scotland and Northern Ireland issue their own notes), the current set is: £5 Sir Winston Churchill £10 Jane Austen/Charles Darwin (the Jane Austen notes were only introduced this year, and will gradually replace the Charles Darwin notes) £20 Adam Smith £50 Matthew Boulton and James Watt Previous notes have featured these people: £1 Isaac Newton £5 Elizabeth Fry £5 George Stephenson £5 Duke of Wellington £10 Charles Dickens £10 Florence Nightingale £20 Sir Edward Elgar £20 Michael Faraday £20 William Shakespeare £50 Sir John Houblon £50 Sir Christopher Wren The history of Ireland is more complicated, and, like your own, involves a time when it was ruled by the United Kingdom. The leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising are commemorated in many places, such as the name of my nearest railroad station. Ireland now uses Euro banknotes which only feature architectural features, but the last set of Irish banknotes featured these people: £5 Catherine McAuley £10 James Joyce £20 Daniel O'Connell £50 Douglas Hyde £100 Charles Stewart Parnell I'd be interested to hear lists of celebrated historical figures from other countries.

JETHRO the dog - (from Daisy's phony phone call to Rosco in "Road Pirates")

It was "To Catch a Duke" in season 3. The Dukes in HOLLYWOOD

"And take that FLEA FARM with you." - (Boss in "Along Came a Duke")

Maybe you shouldn't be watching Dukes, Roger. I just came across this Waylon quote in "Along Came a Duke": "Now, Gen. Stonewall Jackson never set foot in Hazzard. Even the Yankees tried to avoid it."

Jim BRONKE Attorney at Law - (on the sign outside the courthouse)

I assume that Roger's talking about Ben's 2008 autobiography, Redneck Boy in the Promised Land: The Confessions of "Crazy Cooter". You should definitely add it to your shopping list if you don't already have it .

"YOU reckon old Boss found them rental robbers in the YELLOW Pages?" - (Waylon in "Mrs. Rosco P. Coltrane")

Autocorrect is either built into your browser or your operating system (or both). It is nothing to do with HNet. I'm sure that you could turn it off if you wanted to.

I'm guessing that when you're having to prepare roughly two cars for every show, any time-saving shortcuts help, so leave the small flags off. Great work on the model, BTW. I was expecting a snap kit to be far less detailed, but that doesn't seem to stop you adding those details in.

I don't use autocorrect, so I can't tell you. Hopefully, I learnt (sorry, I guess that should be "learned" in US English) how to spell properly without it ;). Spelling and terminology is definitely an area where our too countries differ!

I've just found out that Americans have the Irish to thank for jack-o'-lanterns. The faces were originally carved into hollowed-out turnips, but when the Irish got to America, they found a larger vegetable to use - the pumpkin.

Hogg's Auto WRECKING - (from "Uncle Boss")

Halloween was never that big in the UK when I was growing up. That was partly because we already celebrated Guy Fawkes Night on November 5th. Kids would use papier-mâché heads made on balloons and old clothes stuffed with newspapers to make effigies of Guy Fawkes, which would be dragged around on go-karts while they asked "Penny for the Guy". The effigies would then be burned on a bonfire on November 5th, accompanied by a fireworks display. The public displays still go on, and some replace Guy Fawkes with an effigy of a topical bad guy (e.g. a politician). Believe it or not, the Irish don't share the British tradition of burning an effigy of a Catholic! Also, buying and selling fireworks for private use is technically illegal here, although it's apparently very easy to drive across the border to Northern Ireland and bring some back. I was up there a year ago, and you don't have to go very far over the border before you see big signs advertising fireworks for sale. Over the past couple of decades, Halloween has become a much bigger event in both the UK and Ireland. It's very much the Americanized (note that I've Americanized the spelling of Americanised!) version of the celebrations with pumpkins and trick or treat, neither of which figured in the celebrations when I was young, even though they showed "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" on TV .

I can't answer for all of Europe, but April Fool's Day is definitely celebrated in the UK and Ireland. I don't think that I've participated in any jokes directly since my school days, but there are usually some good stories on TV, in the newspapers, and increasingly on the Internet (if you can separate them from fake news!). One of the most famous British TV hoaxes is 60 years old this year. In 1957, Panorama, a still-running, hard-hitting, investigative current affairs documentary show looked into the spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. Spaghetti wasn't widely eaten in Britain back then, so most people didn't know where it came from. Check out the spaghetti being picked from the spaghetti trees and laid out to dry in the sun: We briefly covered the French version of the tradition when I was at school. They call it "Poisson d’Avril" (literally "April Fish"), which originally related to the practice of sticking a fish on the back of "fools" who did not accept the calendar change (having the New Year on January 1st instead of April 1st) imposed by Charles IX. Of course, in Hazzard they celebrate Sadie Hogg Day on April 1st .

"If we TAKE THAT home, we'll be able TO buy Uncle Jesse a new motor for his TRACTOR." - (about the prize money in "Duke vs. Duke")

The bad guys in "Luke's Love Story" were Turk and ROY.

"It's not the Grand OLE OPRY" - (from "Daisy's Song")