I don’t think you had appropriated the label “British” at the time. When you had Bordeaux, the British were still just the Welsh and Cornish and maybe the Bretons.
The Shetlands and Orkney are part of Scotland, so they belong to the UK. The Isle of Man has a status similar to the Channel Islands: It’s a feudal tenure of the British monarch (as “Lord of Mann”), and the UK takes care of defence and foreign policy, but it’s not part of the UK itself.
You are probably right, I don’t think any of the northern cultures had much influence in middle or southern Europe. Except perhaps the Normans, who for some reason had a lot of effect in Sicily apparently? I need to research that!
But yes, I think ownership of Bordeaux was largely based on French dynasties…ar leasr until Agincourt etc…?
Eleanor of Aquitaine brought it to the Normans upon marrying Henry, I believe. They held on to it for a couple of fraught centuries, but I don’t think it was ever English (in the sense of language or in the sense of part of the Kingdom of England).
There are a number of instances where it does matter. I work in the electricity industry there is one market for GB (excluding Northern Ireland), and I often need statistical data for GB and have to be very careful to see whether it the datea excludes NI or not.
A lot of people in Ireland refer to the Republic of Ireland as “Ireland”, and things can get confusing with that as well. For example, there is a single electricity market for the whole island of Ireland which the electricity sytem operators call “All Island” (with an s) split into “Ireland” and “Northern Ireland”. A rugby player from Northern Ireland if they get selected for an international will play for Ireland, though on the island of Ireland this team is sometimes referred to as “All Ireland” (with an R)
I am not convinced there has been a move from (Great) Britain to UK, the two terms have always been used interchangably, though I think there is less use of the word Great than there used to be. .
Here in the Bluegrass, UK means Go Big Blue and not anything to do with them little countries where people talk all affected and funny-like. 
It would have been truly unlucky for this patient to start out in a helicopter with a drunk pilot, and then get transferred to an ambulance that set out to drive from Kentucky to a London hospital at the standard US ambulance rate of $35,000 an hour plus tax.
One example is the country code sticker for cars, which was recently changed from GB to UK. It’s only one example, of course, but I think it’s a telling one.
AIUI, the term “Great Britain” was invented at the Union of England and Scotland (as James VI/I had argued for as soon as he became King of England), Ireland being treated at that time as a separate kingdom. In general usage it was commonly used by Scots after the Union to ensure they weren’t assumed to be covered by references to England (which nevertheless still remained a common usage for the whole polity until quite late). I would guess James and those who finally wrote the name into the Act of Union meant the “Great” bit to mean no more than “greater than the sum of its parts”.
I agree that “UK” is more commonly used relatively recently, but I think it’s more to do with greater awareness of the sensitivities arising from the Northern Irish Troubles, from the late 70s onwards. And I think there’s been a conscious decision by government as well.
Another confirmation that UK is becoming the more usual term. Can’t help you with why, though.
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Wouldn’t be that bad.
Though it doesn’t seem that they have a hospital - only an ambulance service.
Hmm, that’s the first time I’ve encountered the word “micropolitan”. It’s not immediately clear to me what the difference is between a micropolis and a “town”. One might think that the purpose could be a strict technical definition, but then London KY does not seem to fit that definition.
That sounds to me like the origin of “United Kingdom”, not “Great Britain”. The latter is just the name of the island, which existed as its own nameable thing before Britons, Angles, Saxons, or Celts even set foot on it. The “Great” is by contrast with Brittany, which is part of France.
We could just rebrand as UK, not short for anything - like KFC and HSBC which I think are now technically their full names.
The inhabitants of the northern islands haven’t forgotten their Viking heritage, especially the folk from the Ornery Islands.
Quite clear so far, thank you. Now I wonder: if the UK is defined as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Nothern Ireland, then Great Britain is not only the big island, but it would include Orkney and the Shettlands too? Or are they omitted from the kingsdom’s name because a list of all the islands would be tedious? Strictly speaking, it would have to contain all the Scottish islands like Islay too, there must be dozens.
It’s quite common for an island nation to have the same name for the country as for the main island, even though there might be additional islands that form part of the national territory. Examples I can think of include Cuba, Malta, and Madagascar. In all these cases, the omission of the other islands is simply due to the fact that the main island constitutes the vast majority of the national territory, and does not negate the claim to the other islands.
As to Britain specifically, it was introduced as the name of the country in 1707, when the Kingdoms of England (which at that time already included Wales) and Scotland merged - they had already been under a personal union (same king but still constitutionally separate countries) since 1603 but were now merged into a real union (merger of the countries themselves). I think the naming of the resulting country after the island, rather than a construct such as “United Kingdom of England and Scotland”, was motivated by a desire to overcome the previous identities as separate countries; for a while, it was common to refer to Scotland as “North Britain”, but this fell out of use later - although for many years, Edinburgh’s leading hotel was the North British.
No, it’s explicitly in the Act of Union of 1707[1], though the term had indeed been around at least since James proposed the Union a hundred years earlier. “United Kingdom” comes from the Union with Ireland[2] a century later.
So they go around wearing horned helmets and singing about canned meat products in restaurants?
Scotland has over 790 offshore islands, with 93 of those inhabited.