historical details yay! my google-fu is weak

Heather *likes* having a parent who is not only a WW2 geek, but also a maps geek. Asked Dad last night whether Turkey or North Africa would be more feasible for a destination, he asks what year (I was going to be setting it in late 1941 but after watching Conspiracy last night, I'm thinking more early '42 - doesn't make any difference to routes but would make a difference to the Germans actually starting to look for solutions) and I get this :

Dad : You won't be able to get through the Mediterranean or anything past France. Italians controlled it. Turkey is out.
Me : So, my route through North Africa would be....?
Dad : Casablanca. That side would be Collaborationist French rather than German-controlled at that stage. For retrieval, :pulls out map and starts tracing route: I'd go with Tunisia - Tunis, and the Germans had only just got to the border with Libya, weren't actually controlling it, take the train from Algiers to Tunis, Tiaret is not quite over the border, unless you want *actual* border country and therefore more dodgy, which would be Ghadamis in Libya.
Me : And I get to Lisbon how?
Dad : Boat from Ireland or plane from London. From there to Algiers, train from Algiers to Tunis.

So now I've just got to find info on the time it would take to get through said routes, paperwork and so on. Anyone know where I can find that kind of info? What terms to use on google? sites?

When I google it, all the bloody non-modern travel guides are for the late 1800s or 1904-8, which is so not helpful (several are in French, which I can normally muddle through) and anything for 1941 and 'Algiers' is talking about the *late* 1942-1943 period, attacking by ship by the British. Argh.

Also, how the hell do you find stuff on what paperwork would be needed to get across borders?

on dissonance

Huh. Really, really huh. ciderpress, this week's Radio 4 science program (just finished, should be able to hunt down on listen again) was on dissonance - the way you react to it, the automatic response to it, social conditioning and whether it was learned and also how it contributed to social cohesiveness, with studies and speakers from the Max Planck Institute.

They went through history, the times when musicians have used it to create effects, and then showed you it - took a bit of Debussy, then played you it again a tone up, then a tri-note down, then played it all together and geeeyahhhhh. They'd also done some studies with a tribe who'd never been exposed to western music to see if it was a learned response, and they have the same reaction. Then came when they played the Bach. They twisted the chord structure a bit so it wasn't in the same grouping, then played you the 'normal' structure, the 'expected' structure, and the expected one was visibly more relaxing. And then revealed they'd done experiments with the two versions to see what our emotional response is - the more dissonant one actually ignites the part of your brain that handles fear/flight. Sweatier palms, hairs up, faster heart rate... They reckon it's an ingrained social cohesiveness thing, related to 'dissonant noises bad, please to flee or be on your guard, nice noises good and a sign that everything is going well'.

Which got me thinking about nasal voices and how you can see everyone else visibly cringe and tell themselves not to have a negative response or judge someone who's got a nasal voice.