The QI thread of things you found reasonably arresting, mildly intriguing, & yes, quite interesting. - The Bear and Badger

Kow

I thought it was a convention specifically for furries with a large running bird fetish.

Diluted Dante

Paula Radcliffe?

cockbeard

He said large, so more Sally Gunnell

Blue Swirl

The island of Sark abolished feudalism in 2008.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sark

Diluted Dante

Cross posting from weird stuff thread

Every man who has walked on the moon bar one was born between 1930 and 1935. The odd one out, Alan Shephard is the oldest man to have walked on the moon, and was born in 1923.

davyK

Alan Shepard's PA used to display one of 2 pictures of him on her desk - one smiling , one frowning - so that visitors would know whether to knock the door of his office or not....

He was a grumpy cunt.

Blue Swirl

Cool stuff.

Blue Swirl

Of the seventeen regions the UN considers non-self governing, ten are British. Quel surprise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_list_of_Non-Self-Governing_Territories

GooberTheHat

Of the territories that are listed, 3 have had recent independence referendums, they voted 98%, 99% and 74% in favour of remaining under British governance.

Blue Swirl

It's true. Just interesting how long the echoes of empire have endured.

Kow

I'm not sure a vote is always valid, really. Gibraltar always votes to stay part of the UK but then the population was planted there by the UK so they'd hardly vote any other way.

Blue Swirl

A truth more universal you will not find: politics is fucking weird. Yo.

cockbeard

Which were the three territories? Just that if they're what I guess they were, then weren't some of them pretty much uninhabitated prior to settlement. Yes the populations were put there by the colonial power, but it's not really comparable to India or Hong Kong. I mean Argentina isn't governed by Mayans or the Olmecs, and who's to say that it's really the Spanish that would have a greater claim to Gibraltar than say Algeria given how much of southern Spain was settled by Moors

Diluted Dante

cockbeard wrote:

Which were the three territories? Just that if they're what I guess they were, then weren't some of them pretty much uninhabitated prior to settlement. Yes the populations were put there by the colonial power, but it's not really comparable to India or Hong Kong. I mean Argentina isn't governed by Mayans or the Olmecs, and who's to say that it's really the Spanish that would have a greater claim to Gibraltar than say Algeria given how much of southern Spain was settled by Moors

Bermuda, which wasn't inhabited, Gibraltar and Falklands I think.

cockbeard

Don't get me wrong that's not being some form of apologist for an empirical history, but also sick and tired of being made to feel guilty about it. I mean at what point do you say it's ok for immigrants to feel at home, 2, 4, 8 generations??? To say that the inhabitants of Gibraltar or the Falklands are not allowed to have a say is a bit like the same shit that Britain First and their moronic followers shout from behind their balaclavas

Yeah globalisation is a bit shit, and socio-ethno-cultural groupings will never be easy as that z-axis of time will always be a fly in the ointment

Kow

Well China filled Tibet with Chinese so that they could say look the people living there are happy to be Chinese. I'm not sure you could count a politically planted populace as immigrants. If you've ever been to Gibraltar then you'd see that saying Spain has no claim on it is ridiculous. I'm not saying the people there have no say, just that it's definitely not the only say.

cockbeard

I've never visited, so I can't claim to know, and I don't. Was merely saying that it's all a bit of a fuck up and if the pun can be excused at some point a temporal flag has to be planted, as much as a territorial one. Oterwise we do the sensible thing and fuck off borders and land ownership

GooberTheHat

Falklands wasn't inhabited either.

Minnesänger

Kow wrote:

I'm not sure a vote is always valid, really. Gibraltar always votes to stay part of the UK but then the population was planted there by the UK so they'd hardly vote any other way.

A large proportion of the population in Gib nowadays derives from Spanish, Italian etc. ancestry. Those people were not planted there by the British and travelled there over time - often hundreds of years.

A good 20% plus of the population is of Spanish ancestry yet they often vote 90% to remain British which must mean that many of the Spanish gib residents are also voting that way.

Kow wrote:

If you've ever been to Gibraltar then you'd see that saying Spain has no claim on it is ridiculous. I'm not saying the people there have no say, just that it's definitely not the only say.

They have a claim, but the UK and Gib have both stated that Gib must be at the table for talks, which Spain consistently blocks.

Furthermore many of the older residents of Gib remember the blockades and cruelty from the Franco era and have a lot of baggage towards the Spanish.

This is, is argue, the main reason the locals vote the way they do - not because the British put them there, but why would they vote to rejoin a country that repeatedly tries to exclude them and, at worst, attempted to starve them into submission?

Minnesänger

tl:dr

Gib isn’t the UK’s Tibet. It’s Spain’s Taiwan.

Kow

I wasn't trying to compare them really, just making the point that asking the populations's feelings on something is not the only factor and not always meaningful.

Every part of Spain has memories of the cruelty of Franco. That's one of the big reasons for troubles in the Basque Country and Cataluña. Gibraltar isn't a special case.

If the Dutch, for example, had ownership of the cliffs of Dover from a war a few hundred years ago, and were controlling the British Channel from there, I can't imagine the attitude in Britain would be ok, the people there consider themselves Dutch so what can we do. And I think that's part of the problem - if Gibraltar wasn't a highly strategic point, nobody would give a shit about the handful of people living there and they could consider themselves Martians if they wanted.

Minnesänger

Yeah, can’t disagree with any of that.

Blue Swirl

Woh woh woh, lads. I just thought it was interesting. Hugs?

Diluted Dante

Lets vote on it.

Blue Swirl

Though, not to stoke the flames of a fire I just tried to put out, but as with everything, hypocrisy abounds. There are Spanish exclaves in Morocco.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melilla
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceuta

Borders are oddly interesting. Though I do wish humanity as a whole would stop being quite so serious about them. I don't give a shit where the lines are drawn, just make sure the people within those lines are well treated.

Blue Swirl

Diluted Dante wrote:

Lets vote on it.

I dunno, ever since the EU referendum and Trump in the same year, the idea of voting on things has made me twitch.

davyK

The whole Austria/Germany and Russia/Ukraine thing has been running for a very long time too.

There are folk in those territories who likely consider themselves not of their bordered nation, at least culturally.

Blue Swirl

davyK wrote:

There are folk in those territories who likely consider themselves not of their bordered nation, at least culturally.

See also, the semi-autonomous regions of Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_Italy#Autonomous_regions_with_special_statute

djchump

Israel says hi.

Kow

Blue Swirl wrote:

Though, not to stoke the flames of a fire I just tried to put out, but as with everything, hypocrisy abounds. There are Spanish exclaves in Morocco. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melilla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceuta Borders are oddly interesting. Though I do wish humanity as a whole would stop being quite so serious about them. I don't give a shit where the lines are drawn, just make sure the people within those lines are well treated.

I wasn't defending Spain at all, just saying their stance is absolutely logical in this case, and probably right. Ceuta and Melilla are similar cases but worse is Perejil Island, which is a small rock 200 metres off the coast of Morocco, inhabited by a few goats. About 15 years ago Spain nearly got involved in a military clash over a perceived 'invasion' of this 'Spanish territory'. There was much flag waving.

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