What links an Adelaide suburb, a NZ peninsula, four Royal Navy ships and a medieval Tamil dynasty?

[mcgillianaire]

The word Coromandel of course, an European corruption of the Tamil, Cholamandalam, or literally "The realm of the Cholas".

The Cholas were the Tamil equivalent of the Romans, a dynasty which at its peak in the 11th & 12th centuries AD, ruled an empire stretching from the Maldives to the Malay Archipelago, and including all of Southern India, parts

Comments

[jhall1]

Very interesting. I liked the lofty "of course" in your first sentence. :)

[mcgillianaire]

Heh, thanks. I'm glad you found it interesting.

[onlineoffline]

You need to get on that Radio 4 programme, Round Britain Quiz!

You could have added 'antique curtains' to your list! I knew this without Wiki-ing it as I used to deal in antique textiles. Here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chintz

Two books you might like to read which are both fast and easy reads. 'The White Tiger' by Aravind Adiga, which is about corruption in India, told as a novel. it was not at all popular there as it tells it as it is.
The second is 'The Fear Index' by Robert Harris. I haven't quite finished it yet, but I'm pretty sure you would like it. It's about a mathematician who has set up an algorithm based hedge fund, but someone is out to sabotage him. He doesn't know if it is himself, because he might have something wrong with his brain, or someone else .. the sort of psychological thriller I like. Both would make good films.

[mcgillianaire]

Hey, I'm sorry I didn't reply to this earlier - I had written out a nice long comment but left the computer before I'd finished it. By the time I returned I forgot about the comment and promptly shut the computer down. Only I returned to this post today and realised I never finished nor sent the reply

[onlineoffline]

So annoying when you lose everything you've written .. it's never the same 2nd time round