Comments on: World’s Greatest Radio Listening Post http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/09/08/worlds-greatest-radio-listening-post/ Yesterday's tomorrow, today. Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:28:09 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Charlene http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/09/08/worlds-greatest-radio-listening-post/comment-page-1/#comment-1060492 Charlene Wed, 10 Sep 2008 05:54:28 +0000 http://blog.modernmechanix.com/?p=5347#comment-1060492 The French Ministry of Defense still operates a communications centre at Bicêtre. I looked this up mainly because Bicêtre didn't sound like a French name to me, and it's not. A 13th century Bishop of Winchester built a fort at the location, and over the centuries "Winchester" was corrupted into Bicêtre. I suppose that's fair enough, since "Winchester" is itself the end product of about 1,000 years of name corruption, and probably originally meant "Market Town of the Belgiae". The French Ministry of Defense still operates a communications centre at Bicêtre.

I looked this up mainly because Bicêtre didn’t sound like a French name to me, and it’s not. A 13th century Bishop of Winchester built a fort at the location, and over the centuries “Winchester” was corrupted into Bicêtre.

I suppose that’s fair enough, since “Winchester” is itself the end product of about 1,000 years of name corruption, and probably originally meant “Market Town of the Belgiae”.

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