Welcome boys and girls. In this atlas I hope to bring you informative and exciting stuff. Every update will enhance your knowledge of the planet we live on in an informative and exciting way. You'll be learning informative and exciting facts, looking at informative and exciting full colour pictures, maps and graphs, and you'll be introducted to prominent figures for the informative fields of science, history and maths, and the exciting sports and entertainment arenas. It's fascinating stuff. Honest.
Information on each nation is believed to be correct. Any errors or lies are solely the responsibilty of a cocker spaniel called Billy who did all the research.
Countries are presented in alphabetical order according to their short name in English. Sorry about that, Johnny Foreigner. Following the short name will be the native full name (or names in countries with more than one official language), and the full name in English. Transliteration to the Latin alphabet will occur where applicable.
Åland consists of a load of islands scattered like confetti between Sweden and Finland at the mouth of the Gulf of Bothnia. It's an autonomous province of Finland, but the official language is Swedish.
Here's a handful of notable Argentines. Eva Perón, Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, transvestite actress Florencia De La V, liberator of Argentina José de San Martín, tennis dish Gabriela Sabatini, and some footballers: Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stéfano, Gabriel Batistuta, Osvaldo Ardiles and the best footballer ever, Diego Armando Maradona.
Famous for its XXXX-ing funny beer commercials, non-stop beach parties, hats with corks dangling from them, Kylie, and cricket players with moustaches and/or fluorescent sunscreen, Australia is a pretty darned big island, and is situated a bit up from Antarctica, about a third of the way to Japan.
Prominent Australians include (from left to right) ace rock band AC/DC, chunky cricket player Merv Hughes, Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee, man-dressed-as-woman Dame Edna Everage, Eric Bana as Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read in Chopper, mmmm it's lovely Kylie Minogue, big scary goth Nick Cave, ex-beard Nicole Kidman, big-footed swimmer Ian Thorpe, useless indie band The Vines.
Brunei is a tiny bit of the island of Borneo. It's so tiny that the current sultan makes up for it in two ways. Firstly, by having a massive name, His Majesty Paduka Seri Baginda Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, GCB. Secondly, by being really really rich. He's so rich that he 'phones up Queen Elizabeth II now and again just to fart into the receiver when she answers. His younger brother Prince Jefri also likes a good bit of puerile humour: he called his 50-metre long yacht Tits. Yes, Tits. Tits's lifeboats were called Nipple I and Nipple II. I wish I could tell you that that was a joke I'd made up, but it's not.
Originally set up as big slavery supermarket where Portuguese folk could come and pick up great slaves at low low prices. Three Senegalese slaves for the price of two; two years no money down and 0% interest on bulk orders of Guineans; and be sure to check out the astounding bargains that can be found in our pre-owned slave department. With prices like that you'd be crazy to produce sugar-cane yourself!
When carving up South America, the Europeans thought it'd be a right laugh to make a funny-shaped country. Thus Chile is dead long and thin. The Spanish, though, had quite a fight on their hands when they wanted to grab the land, because the native Mapuche chaps were a bit tasty with their fists and knew karate.
From a 1982 pamphlet issued by the UK's Ministry of Defence entitled Daddy's Coming Home Soon - Explaining The Falklands War To Your Child:
Situated halfway between the UK and Iceland in the Atlantic Ocean, the Faroe Islands were uninhabited until around 3000 BC when a bored Egyptian king decided he fancied a fishing trip, and went off on his holidays with a bunch of mates. It took them quite a while to get there, mind, what with them walking like Egyptians; but once they did arrive, they set down the sheep they'd brought (so that they could have a few lamb casseroles to break up the inevitable monotony of eating fish all the time), got their rods out and went cod-crazy. Once they'd had their fill they went home, leaving behind a couple of un-eaten sheep and a bit of graffiti scratched into a rock proclaiming that 'Pharaoh woz ere.'
French Polynesia is a bunch of islands in the Pacific Ocean, northwest of New Zealand. They're not real islands, they're floating platforms; a bit like those things that separate the lanes in swimming pools. As the name suggests, the islands were annexed by the French in the 19th century. Our intrepid Frenchy exploring colonialists Pierre et Jacques were the first to set foot on one of the islands - Tahiti - and tricked the locals into signing over their land. They got some perfumed ladies to flash their ding dongs whilst doing the can-can. Never having seen nipple tassles before, the locals were hypnotised. Whilst in this state, Pierre et Jacques whipped out the contracts, got the locals to sign them, and skipped off backstage where they were pleasured at great length by the petticoat-wearing dancing girls.
The most famous folks in Monaco are the royal lot, the House of Grimaldi. There's current boss Prince Albert II, his recently-deceased father Prince Rainier III, his late mother Princess Grace and his sister Princess Stéphanie. Scottish F1 driver David Coulthard lives and owns a hotel there. Both King Farouk I of Egypt and arms trader Sir Basil Zaharoff lived there for a while too. Top French footballer Thierry Henry played 118 times for AS Monaco FC scoring 26 goals.
The locals were out on the streets. 'I want my MTV!' they shouted. 'No!' replied the Governor, 'the BBC will do you just fine'.
The only artificial lighting allowed by Slovenian law is the sculptures of Dan Flavin.
Sweden has a fascinating history. In the 17th century, Sweden had an empire that comprised most of what is now Finland, Estonia, a bit of Norway, and a couple of German beaches, where the Swedes would spend their holidays. It was on one of these holidays that King Karl X Gustav had a little nip of some German beer. He liked it, took some home, and soon every Swede was an alcoholic.
Some of the great and good (and Roxette) of Sweden: top hit-makers Abba, ace footballer and Calvin Klein model Fredrik Ljungberg, rock group The Hives, football coach Sven-Göran Eriksson, twiddly diddly metal guitarist Yngwie J Malmsteen, Roxette, and five-time Wimbledon and six-time French Open champion Björn Borg.
Some notable Swiss folk: superb tennis player Roger Federer, FIFA top dog Sepp Blatter, artists Alberto Giacometti and HR Giger, moustache-y pop duo Yello, footballer Hakan Yakin, and industrial-ish band The Young Gods.
The United Kingdom (UK for short) is, of course, the bestest country on the planet. It is home to such greats as 'Tiger' Tim Henman, Linda Lusardi, Mark 'Rollerball' Rocco and Ned's Atomic Dustbin. The UK also invented pens, cars, food, outer space, pop music, the Rubik's Cube and Aspirin. Isn't that great? Isn't the UK great?
Some notable Brits include playwright William Shakespeare, war-winner Sir Winston Churchill, Erasure-prototypes Pet Shop Boys, footballer Terry Butcher, oh dear it's A Flock of Seagulls, horses-and-shagging novelist Jilly Cooper, Scottish singing twins The Proclaimers, Pope-hater Henry VIII, The Welsh Elvis, Shakin' Stevens, and the cast of BBC television comedy show The Office.
Some eminent Americans: Curb Your Enthusiasm star and creator Larry David, foxy ginge lass Lindsay Lohan, Janet Jackson with one ding-dong out at Superbowl XXXVIII, the handsome New York Yankees short stop and captain Derek Jeter, the cast of The Sopranos, nearly-President man John Kerry, and the wonderful TV painter Bob Ross.
Tourism was once the primary economic activity on this group of Caribbean islands, but since the late 1990s it has been overtaken by Internet pornography websites. Such is the magnitute of this business that the US Virgin Islands, a dependency of the United States of America, is going through a crisis comparable to the de-forestation of the Amazon. Virgin girls are being de-flowered at an alarming rate. Indeed, the country has recently added Redhead Teens to the World Conservation Union's list of endangered species. Only three virgin redhead teens are known to exist, and the only Virgin Islands male carrying the MC1R gene has publically stated that he prefers brunettes.
At the exact same moment, Pierre et Jacques and Peter and James jumped off their boats and whacked their flags into the sand. 'Merde!' cried Pierre. 'Oh bother!' moaned Peter. Pierre and Peter started pushing each other around like school children preparing to fight in the playground.
This is the current Vatican Head of State, Pope Benedict XVI, or 'Superbowl' to his friends. Like previous popes, Benny is a Catholic, used to be a goalkeeper, likes to travel, and wishes for world peace. Benedict XVI has also stated in an internal memo that he does not smoke dope, nor does he approve of such things; indeed, he finds the implication of illegal drug use purely based on rhyming words to be 'exceedingly childish.' He went on to state that he does like Imperial Leather soap, though.