Again as a bit of a bystander, I’m fascinated and repelled by the topic of the Falkland Islands simultaneously. Fascinated because the Brits showed their mettle and traveled thousands of miles to defend a small, isolated colony of theirs that was the subject of some pretty naked aggression. And they did defeat the erstwhile “conquerors” with spirit, elan and pretty efficiently, suffering the casualties of war along the way. I am repelled by the blinkered obtuseness of the Argentinians in not being aware of the fact that it is very bad manners to steal someone else’s property at gunpoint, much less another country’s colony. At the time it was happening, I followed the fairly meager daily reports on CNN and watched as the British task force left England, approached,landed and commenced the arduous task of separating the robbers from their ill-gotten gains. I watched as the Argentine Air Force resolutely pressed home their somewhat effective attacks on British shipping until sufficient British air assets were in the neigborhood to shush them away. I understand that various and separate armed actions took place that resulted in an Argentine defeat, pure and simple. We call a country that steals things without so much as a “how do you do”, a Kleptocracy. I have asked before in this or a similar thread, How many native Argentinians greeted the Argentinians with cheering crowds welcoming their "saviors’ and waving little Argentinian flags standing before buildings and houses gaily festooned with Bunting in bright Argentinian colors? After all, they were liberators no? No parades, music, bands playing, making nice with the locals, etc,? Were there in fact, any “oppressed” Falkland citizens of Argentinian extraction who lived there at all?
Even though soundly defeated with an English population in 100% possession of the Falklands, it appears that home-grown propaganda in Argentina continues to distort and lie about the so-called Argentinian “claim” to the Falklands. Thus the issue will not go away as long as the Argentines need a hot button issue to distract them from their own rather hazily questionable internal affairs. Word has it that Argentina has asked the new Pope to intervene. As Stalin once observed at Yalta, "How many divisions does the Pope have? None, so good luck with that.
How many permanent Argentines were living on the islands before the British arrived? French? Italians? Lower Slobovians? If I were the British, the only things I would discuss are fishing limits, economic trade between the two countries and perhaps some cultural exchanges to foster mutual understanding. I would not mention any Argentinian “mineral rights” under the seabed either. And if there’s to be a non-aggression treaty, well, I wouldn’t take their word for it: trust, maybe, but verify always.
The only real answer to that is “some” - it’s a very murky story, with various countries kicking the citizens of others off the rocks, until the British got serious about keeping it (and in the process kicked out half a dozen Argentines and let a rather larger number stay). IMO the French actually have the best claim, but they’re totally not interested. Incidentally, the US Navy were arguably the ones most responsible for kicking Argentina off the islands…
Amidst all this discussion, it may be worth mentioning (and I haven’t scoured the previous 23 pages, so it may have been already) that the Falkland Islands were British before Argentina even existed.
On that basis, it’s not unreasonable for Argentinians to expect that the current Argentinian pope would be sympathetic to Argentina’s claims, although I think he’s a better man than that.
Yes, David, it’s been brought up several times in this thread. It doesn’t impress the Argies much who seem to believe that they have some mythical claim on the islands “from on high” based solely on the relative proximity of the Falklands to Argentina. With that kind of logic, Canada should belong to the US or vice versa and every country in Europe should belong to every other country. Oops, that’s called the European Union, LOL. As I have mentioned once before in this or another similar thread, there are two islands in the St. Lawrence Seaway called St Pierre and Miquelon. The islands belong to France. They have belonged to France since well before the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec. Neither the US nor Canada will be invading them anytime soon, nor obnoxiously beating the drums of war just because they are “close”.
Top Gear Falklands row: Cast and crew forced to leave Argentina after angry protests
Top Gear has been involved in a number of controversies. Credit: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
The team used a Porsche with registration H982 FLK - suggested by politicians and army veterans in the country to be a veiled reference to the 1982 conflict.
A group of war veterans protested outside their hotel, while a local politician said the team had been escorted to the airport.
Local media showed pictures appearing to show the car, which no longer bore the license plate, abandoned and with smashed windows.
The BBC confirmed they were leaving the country, although show bosses have said the number plate was merely a coincidence and was not chosen deliberately.
It would not surprise me to find that they did know about the license plate, the production staff has been known to exercise very poor judgement, in particular the episode in which they drove from Florida to Louisiana. Production thought it would be funny to paint the cars with slogans inflammatory to Southerners. They had no idea of the danger they were put in,and were lucky to escape in one piece. http://youtu.be/pKcJ-0bAHB4
It’s almost certainly a fake plate, and hence deliberate - https://www.vehicleenquiry.service.gov.uk/ lets you check details about a car if you have the make and registration number. That number and Porsche doesn’t return any hits…
Did the car have a U.K. plate, or Argentine? I looked for images of Argentine plates, and found many different types. I also found an image of Clarkson,(who does not look too much like a license plate) which was part of an article in
Car, and Driver Magazine:
"Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear Crew Flee Argentina Over Number-Plate Fracas
October 3, 2014 at 3:21 pm by Andrew Wendler about the incident .
For what it’s worth, we looked up the plate number in question on a U.K. registry decoder, and it indicates that the registration originated in Maidstone, England, between August 1990 and July 1991, so the plate very well could be original to that Porsche. "
I don’t care for Mob scenes, and certainly not over something like this. Had their cars been painted with snubs about the Falklands war, that would be different, but with the plate, they have plausible denyability. Even so, the production people at T.G. need to change their way of doing things a bit. (Unless the B.B.C. has an award category for most stonings in a season. )
Clarkson & Co, who got stoned (as in the target of stones being thrown) and run out of town in the South of the US for their car emblazoned with “MAN BOY LOVE RULES” or similar plus going to German event in Spitfires with commentary gloating over defeating Germany, are being accused of provocative behaviour in Argentina?
Hard to believe. :lol:
Problem with Americans, Germans and Argentinians is that they lack Top Gear’s sense of humour.
I agree, as when the guys from Top Gear Australia came for a visit, and were brought to the location in a prisoner transport Van. (Series 16, episode 4 @3:00 min. mark.) Being left handed, I have a different sense of humor from many people,(I found a picture of a whoopie cushion on an electric chair to be hysterically funny) and I generally enjoy the humor on Top Gear. However, sometimes I just shake my head at what they come up with. For the deep South show, and now it seems for the Argentine show, I have to wonder what were they thinking/smoking when they did their planning. Rating will climb, so all will be well.
Top Gear Australia was a crap show, which deservedly didn’t last long.
As for the convict aspect, when I was a kid people here were ashamed of any convict taint in their family’s past. Now they glory in it, and invent it in most cases. (My ‘convict’ ancestor was an Irishman who served in the British army in the Tasmanian convict colony, which was something my half Irish grandmother was strangely proud of but which nowadays is something of an embarrassment. This is compensated for by my grandmother’s mother being the widow - before marrying my grandmother’s father - of a policeman shot dead by our most famous outlaw, also of Irish descent. I researched this some years ago and found it, like most family folklore, to be rubbish. )
I never saw much of TG AU, just on the odd occasion when it was run on BBC TG. At one time or other, they had all the different franchise hosts over to England to cross advertise the show. I remember the AU crew and the Police Van, Clarkson said they would arrive in much the same manner as their ancestors departed 100 yrs ago. I can, but never do watch the U.S. version, its seems less clever in the native culture. The Top Gear franchise has been around a long time, and it may in a couple more years, find its just end.
An uncharitable thought crossed my mind - what a pity that the veteran Argies let Clarkson and his fellow superannuated adolescents get away …
Seriously, as somebody who regards his car as a metal box with four wheels that gets him around, rather than some sort of statement of personal status and work, I find “Top Gear” in any manifestation almost unwatchable, not least because of the juvenile, boy-racer attitudes projected by Clarkson and his lieutenants. I cannot make up my mind on the number plate issue - it was probably an unfortunate coincidence but, then again, the “Top Gear” crew have proved themselves quite stupid and infantile enough to engineer such a stunt (btw - as far as I understand it, the British motor vehicle licensing system has the flexibility required to grant a customized registration; it could not happen, for example, in Ireland where a completely inflexible system based on the year and order of registration applies). In the end, more likely an unfortunate coincidence but, if it was a “jolly jape”, it would not be out of character for “Top Gear” … Yours from the Sheepcotes, Port Stanley, JR.
“Hold fire, amigos ! Wait until you see the whites of Clarkson’s backside - any minute now …”
Idiot Jeremy Clarkson and his Merry Men have a long history of attention-seeking, offensive statements and behavior. Above is a still from the “Top Gear” Christmas Special of 2011, during which Clarkson and his juvenile colleagues behaved and spoke offensively of various aspects of the culture of the country in which the programme was filmed - India. One jolly jape - supposed to be a humorous comment on Indian sanitation - involved driving a Jaguar car fitted with a toilet (“ideal for India”) around a slum in which the residents could not boast even running water … Words fail me. JR:roll:
At least they think they are funny…Though if they continue as they have in causing gross aggravations to foreign Nation’s Peoples, the show may end due to lack of extant presenters.
As for the convict aspect, when I was a kid people here were ashamed of any convict taint in their family’s past. Now they glory in it, and invent it in most cases. (My ‘convict’ ancestor was an Irishman who served in the British army in the Tasmanian convict colony, which was something my half Irish grandmother was strangely proud of but which nowadays is something of an embarrassment. This is compensated for by my grandmother’s mother being the widow - before marrying my grandmother’s father - of a policeman shot dead by our most famous outlaw, also of Irish descent. I researched this some years ago and found it, like most family folklore, to be rubbish. )
…
From Rising Sun*
Interesting, Rising Sun. Transportation to Australia has long had a different image in Ireland, at least. This is based on the idea that many of our heroic rebels were transported, mainly from the 1798 rebellion but also (and most prominently) after the “Young Ireland” group’s farcical rebellion of 1848, towards the end of the period of transportation. What is forgotten, of course, is the fact that most Irish transportees (like all British ones) were not heroic patriots, but the usual cast of burglars, sheep-stealers, habitual petty criminals etc. This, of course, opens a wider question - to what extent was crime in the late Georgian and early Victorian period fuelled by necessity ? Two of the major sources of transportees - London and its environs and Ireland - were very hard places to make a decent living for the vast majority of the population in the Georgian period.
Of course, in a curious way, the introduction of transportation was actually a relief to those transported, at least by comparison with what might have befallen them before. For most of the history of Georgian Britain, being caught out in any significant act of larceny, burglary, sheep-stealing etc. could occasion a visit to the Old Bailey (or the Sessions in Ireland) with rapid transition through Newgate to an execution site. Yes, it was very tough for the early transportees to Australia and Van Diemen’s Land - but at least they were alive. Over time, things became easier. Liberated convicts - “ticket of leave men” - were able to set up businesses or obtain grants of land; something that would have been impossible at “home”. This became known back “home” - though not, apparently, to the authorities. There was an occasion on which a body of female criminals imprisoned on a “hulk” (decommissioned Naval ship, used as an offshore prison) were given the good news that their sentence of transportation had been commuted to imprisonment in one of the new penitentiaries. Said authorities were astonished to be confronted with a huge riot on the part of the convicts - they were incensed at being deprived of the opportunity for a new life in Australia.
Have you read “The Fatal Shore” by Robert Hughes ? Excellent and accessible work of history dealing with the transportation period ? Or “The Secret River”, a novel by Kate Grenville, dealing with the experiences of a family transported to Australia, and their experience of life before and after ? Both strongly recommended. Best regards, JR.
I’ll focus very briefly on the Irish experience here, in a colony then dominion and now possibly a sort of nation (under the British Crown thanks to our dominant political suckholes to the monarchy) which until a few decades ago was dominated by the British Protestant majority with a large underclass of Irish Catholics.
However, your reference to ‘home’ has caught my interest as it may explain something from my youth, which still perplexes me as my clear recollection conflicts with confident assurances that my recollection is wrong.
After a long period of fear about and opposition to and discrimination towards the Irish / Fenians / Catholics and their hostility to the Crown, notably during WWI, and their blood sacrifices of infants on the altars of Catholic churches in the dead of night aided by secret tunnels between convents and presbyteries, which is roughly similar to current idiotic opinions about Muslims here, by the 1970s I was assured by my aunt that I was lucky to get a place in the national Department of Navy ‘because it was a Catholic department’. Along with Taxation and various others. (Which was true, as the others didn’t hire Catholics.)That’s all gone now, apart from Indians taking over various departments.
I’m very interested in what you said about ‘home’. When I was in primary school in the 1950s it wasn’t unusual for teachers and other to refer to, at least what I thought they meant as, Britain as ‘home’, a period when the weakening British pink still coloured much of the global map.
I always assumed that ‘home’ referred to Britain / England in all contexts, as it had done for many decades in general usage here among the general (probably non-Irish) populace although few if any of them had been, or were ever likely to go, there. Given that I was then in the care of Christian Brothers of Irish descent, your comment now suggests another possibility which is consistent with my aunt’s denial that her mother, my grandmother, would ever have referred to England / Britain as ‘home’. Yet I have clear recollections of my grandmother referring to ‘home’.
My aunt, the daughter of my half Irish paternal grandmother (there was half-Irish on my paternal grandfather’s side, too) assured me that I was sorely mistaken in my recollection of her mother / my grandmother referring to England / Britain as ‘home’. My aunt said that there was no way my grandmother would have referred to England / Britain as ‘home’ because she was not sympathetic to English rule.
Your post suggests that my aunt and I might have been at cross purposes, on the basis that my clear recollection of my grandmother referring fondly to ‘home’ meant Ireland while my indoctrination in the secular (i.e. British focused) schooling syllabus followed even by the Christian Brothers who taught me meant that ‘home’ referred to Britain. And, despite being educated at that time by Christian Brothers of Irish descent or linked to it (St Kevin’s, Glendalough), I still have a clear recollection of at least one lay teacher who definitely meant ‘Britain’ when he referred to ‘home’.
Haven’t read Grenville. Read Hughes in the ?1980s? when it was first published. I think I gave it up about half way through as, at least to the slight extent that I recall, it would have been a lot more readable about half its size, and it wasn’t full of revelations for me anyway.
The Americans honour their somewhat mythical Puritan founding fathers, while conveniently forgetting that convicts were transported to the American colonies until the War of Independence deprived them of this source of cheap labour. Australia was founded purely as a penal colony, to the extent that it was staffed by convicts, but America had a long history of convict transportation which never figures in its popular history in its conception of itself.
Here is an oddity. When I was admitted to practise in the late 1970s, I hoped to exercise an obscure law I had discovered as a law student, being a law received through our inheritance of British law, which allowed a person convicted of (as I recall) a felony to request the Court to be “transported beyond the seas”. This related to staffing the American colonies with convicts to meet labour shortages in those colonies. Alas, I never had a client facing a charge serious enough to advise him or her to exercise that right so I could witness the interesting events which would follow. An omnibus repeal of outdated laws got rid of it a few years later, much to my disappointment. We also got rid of felonies about the same time, or maybe a bit later.
:lol:
