Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Rockall!

The fleet set sail for Rockall,
 Rockall, Rockall,
To free the isle of Rockall
From fear of foreign thrall.
We sailed across the planet
To find this lump of granite,
One rather startled gannet --
In fact we found Rockall.

So praise the bold bell-bottoms,
 bottoms, bottoms,
Who saw Britannia's peril
And answered to her call.
Though we're thrown out of Malta,
Though Spain may claim Gibraltar,
Why should we flinch or falter
When England's got Rockall?

(Michael Flanders)

That song from a 1956 revue may be heard again.  Rockall is back in the news.

Claimed by Britain in 1955, claimed for Ireland by a sailor named Willie Dick in 1975, uninhabited and uninhabitable, the lump of granite Flanders and Swann used to puncture their country's late-stage imperial pretensions is at the center of a fishing dispute.  Whoever "rules" Rockall can claim the waters around it for twelve miles and exclude the fishing fleet of the other country.  So a big deal for people who love their fish and chips, though maybe not worth going to war.  But in these Brexit-roiled days, anything is possible.  Let us never negotiate from fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.




1 Comments:

Blogger The New York Crank said...

Let them eat oysters!

(I don't know what that means either, but it sounds right.)

Yours crankily,
The New York Crank

8:40 AM  

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