Spanish launch heroic bid to seize Brit polar vessel A band of Spanish net buccaneers has mounted a determined incursion into Her Maj's territorial cyberwaters by demanding that Blighty's forthcoming Royal Research Ship be named the RRS Blas de Lezo, in honour of the man who administered the British a serious military shoeing during the War of Jenkins' Ear. The £200m floating …
@yag, its to "cause offence".
They intentionally picked it to rub somebodies nose in it, boaty mcboatface, is just a bit of fun with no intention to piss somebody off.
They could of had both removed and called it a day, but suprised & happy they left both in the running :)
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I'm in Spain...that would need a really long handle.
Frankly, I would have let the name stand if it won. Doubt if there's anyone still around from 1741 to be personally traumatised and a good-natured concession of defeat of this nature would do more to promote international harmony than any number of diplomats. Plus the guy was clearly a capable sailor.
@allthecoolshortnamesweretaken - Alas, I'm in the wrong part of Spain to be in the SPB, and also probably not cool enough. Haven't exploded anything for ages. So I'd have to categorically any allegations of malfeasance and can bribearrange witnesses if necessary.
@Pookietoo - Yes, the Falklands were given as a reason for voting; and given another 48 hours for the news to get round Argentina, I suspect that Boaty McBoatface would have been blown off the map. But so what? The actual name was from a historical character. It makes people feel better and a reminder of hubris is never a bad thing. And the guy trounced the English; which is not a thing that happened in the Falklands.
Living here, It's a bit like when there's an England v Spain footy match on...vaguely want England to win but am happy to celebrate a Spain win too. And you know you're going to get abuse whatever the outcome. I wouldn't vote for it myself; but would happily raise a glass to world-class trolling if they had won.
Yeah; the organisers have really made themselves look like dicks. Firstly putting the name up for grabs on the internet and -apparently- expecting everyone to have sensible suggestions -also apparently- based solely around British Explorer names; and secondly running off home with their ball because everybody didn't let them win.
To start the competition without a simple set of rules to counteract the near-certainty of 4chan and Hitler etc. being involved beggars belief. That and the "we'll take suggestions unless we don't feel like it" combines a bit of a PR own-goal with the worst of power-wielding bureaucrats. It's a lightweight example of the "You can have a vote (because we let you) so you feel involved; but it will do fuck-all to stop us doing whatever the hell we want anyway" current political system. Possibly I'm extrapolating a little too far; but it does seem to be a small example of a larger malaise. If they had expectations; then they should have informed people of what those expectations were upfront. It all becomes a little pointless and unfair otherwise.
On a less grumbly note my new favourite is:
RSS I LIKE BIG BOATS & I CANNOT LIE
...although I must confess that I'm surprised at the lack of punnage using RSS as "arse"...that seems like a gift to me. Maybe the world's dads have better things to do; or possibly those have all been surreptitiously disappeared. Dunno.
"name the ship the "John Paul Jones" "
after the famous "American" (really Scots) ships captain whose main claim to fame was an aborted raid on Whitehaven in Cumbria - aborted because his men went on a piss-up in the town pubs rather than actually do any fighting! The locals still laugh at him even now - its a part of local oral history. They reckon his WIki entry is a load of BS - there was no fighting at all
I also wonder if its the reason booze now isn't allowed on US Navy ships.....
I also wonder if its the reason booze now isn't allowed on US Navy ships.....
Thinking back to the somewhat blurry days of the visit of the USS Enterprise to Hobart in 1976, the amount of drugs that washed ashore was mind-boggling -- literally. "Red, White and Blue" LSD, smack, Nepalese Temple Eggs (hashish), Acapulco Gold and Maui Wowie weed, methamphetamine, cocaine... Who needs booze when you're as high as a kite without? The pilots told us some very scary stories of the kinds of hallucinations they had while flying!
Another possibility is the almost complete inability of Merkin sailors to hold their booze. Most were well and truly legless before they got to their fourth pint of beer.
Why so damned serious, The Spaniards sailed the seas long before the Brits. Columbus anybody. Just call it HMS Viking as the Vikings brought sailing and so much more to a bunch of farmers lost on an island in the sea. Learn your history, it's nor good nor bad, just the result of events not bad not good. Sorry for this rant but I have found that the older I get the more pissed off I am with nationalistic trends. Haven't we had enough of it by now, and then look at us to day.
The Spaniards sailed the seas long before the Brits. Columbus anybody. Just call it HMS Viking as the Vikings brought sailing and so much more to a bunch of farmers lost on an island in the sea.
Alfred the Great (born in 849) was in 882 engaged in naval actions against the Vikings. You need to learn history pal! Columbus was born 600 years after Alfred so you also need to learn something about the arrow of time.
Also, Columbus was Italian, working for Spain. Historical side note: Columbus faked his log because he was traveling in Portugese waters. No one was quite sure how big the world really was at the time, but Spain and Portugal had already divided it between them, contract brokered by the Pope and all...
But as part of my family is Norwegian - yeah, something viking, I could live with that!
Columbus faked his log because he was traveling in Portugese waters. No one was quite sure how big the world really was at the time, but Spain and Portugal had already divided it between them, contract brokered by the Pope and all...
Another historical sidenote:
In 1508 Bartolome De las Casas wrote: "there were 60,000 people living on this island [Hispaniola], including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...."
de las Casas, Bartolome History of the Indies Harper & Row 1971.
Worth a read: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen, Touchstone Press 2007.
"Also, Columbus was Italian, working for Spain"
Pedantically, Genoese, not Italian as Italy didn't exist as a concept then. But as Genoa had a far-flung trading empire across the Med, his real origin could be confused by history. I've read a theory that he was a christianised muslim, another that he was a converted jew. And wasn't John Cabot supposed to be a distant relative?
Pedantically, Genoese, not Italian as Italy didn't exist as a concept then.
Excellent bit of pedantry there x7! Have an upvote. Most scholars date the beginning of the Risorgimento to somewhere after the end of Napoleonic rule and 1815. Curiously, my favourite Hobart restaurant in the 1970s was Garibaldi's. I have no idea whether the owner was called Giuseppe Garibaldi, or not, and he's certainly old; I see him walking the streets of Hobart still. He's certainly old (90s?) but unlikely to be the original. Lars may disagree, but then his arithmetical abilities seem a bit dodgy ;-)
And another bit of pedantry from me. Went researching through my library and discovered that farming began in Scandinavia some 500 - 1,000 years after it began in the British Isles.
"Just call it HMS Viking as the Vikings brought sailing and so much more to a bunch of farmers lost on an island in the sea."
if that's the case, how did us Celtic types get to Britain and Ireland? And the Beaker people before us? The Romans invaded England before the Vikings got here, so did the Saxons
Sorry for this rant but I have found that the older I get the more pissed off I am with nationalistic trends.
And the older I get the more pissed off with fuckheads like yourself coming out with pseudo-history that would have embarrassed Immanuel Velikovsky or Erich von Däniken. Farming came to the British Isles between 5000 BC and 4500 BC from Syria. The Viking Age of Scandinavian history began ca. 790 AD so how the fuck did they introduce farming to Britain five thousand years earlier? FFS!
@Pompous Git
Why so serious. The Nordic countries like England were populated during the Stone Age, that is since the Ice Age ended some 10.000 years ago, depending on the latitude. We have walked and fucked around Europe for quite some time, ongoing.
Tacitus wrote about tribes in the north in his "Germania" but did not have that much information as the Roman Empire was never able to extended that far.
I never implied that the Vikings introduced farming to Britain, where did you get that from. Why do you mention Syria particularly. Why not rather Iran or Irak if you want to mention some particular country, better just to refer to the region, the rivers perhaps.
This article was, however, about naming a British ship and I did find some of the comments rather humourless. My ability for being serious is rather rubbish, but regarding "too nationalistic" trends I think we should all be pissed off, there is just too much of it again right now in Europe.
The Viking era relates to the time they "went Viking" expanding their territory and trade, nation building and introducing democracy to the world as it is so nicely expressed.
The Brits "went Viking" a bit later, some Viking genes too in there one could guess.
To their credit they didn't seem to try too furiously with the religious forcing. There is, of course, words like Thursday and Friday introduced to the English language but most words were practical. Some very Germanic, for obvious reasons, and some very Nordic like "by" in names like Rugby and similar, as By is village/town in the Scandinavian languages.
Now let me explain why the hell I introduced Vikings in my comment.
Some time ago there was this "Bloody happy Danes". So where did this that "bloody" come from. More about it a bit later.
Before that there was "where to invade next" by Michael Moore at Google. Have a look, it's worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcxKooNIPo4
And yes I like the guy.
Anyway at some poinit he speaks about the way prisoners in Norway are treated in a rather "humane" manner. But then he goes on with something like "look at how those "bloody" Vikings have been able to change in 1000 years. I have no problems with that, but then again look at the facts.
The first democratic society in Europe was Nordic.
"The Alþingi (anglicised as Althing or Althingi) is the national parliament (literally: "[the] all-thing", or general assembly) of Iceland. It is one of the oldest extant parliamentary institutions in the world together with the Jamtamot, today Jämtlands läns landsting, of Jämtland County, Sweden. The Althing was founded in 930 at Þingvellir, the "assembly fields" or "Parliament Plains", situated approximately 45 km east of what later became the country's capital, Reykjavík.
Apart from that, slavery was abandoned like also capital punishment in Scandinavia very early. Not to mention women's right to vote. The word "law" is Nordic and so forth.
I would claim that the Nordic society was more decent and democratic in the year 800 than it was among those who came up with the word "bloody".
Now I could be bloody wrong but I am bloody sure it would be bloody difficult to prove me wrong as facts tell an other story, like to day.
We write our history from our own point of view, we always do. Intruders are always the bloody bastards.
So let me try on my Viking trousers when we met with the barbaric monks in Britain (look it up on YouTube). That was appalling. only men, dressed like women, what the fuck, speaking barbar on their knees, unwilling to fight and what is that. A mutilated corps on a stick. My Thor, that's barbaric, I have never seen anything like that. Now honestly, in front of Vikings (of course), that icon must be the most barbaric icon ever invented in human history. Wow did we clean our weapons, did we take the silver and did we wove to end barbarism in this world. Not much has changed since then, not my fault, give me a break.
Regards Lars
I never implied that the Vikings introduced farming to Britain, where did you get that from. Why do you mention Syria particularly. Why not rather Iran or Irak if you want to mention some particular country, better just to refer to the region, the rivers perhaps.
Apologies regarding the introduction of farming to Britain comment. Mea culpa. The general tenor and inaccuracy of your comments made me rather angry. It's an egregious, old fart's thing.
The reason I mentioned Syria is because that's where the DNA evidence comes from. Not Iraq, not Iran, not Outer Mongolia or wherever your fancy/fantasy lies. Why is it better to refer to the region or the rivers? Why not just tell the fucking truth?
Apart from that, slavery was abandoned like also capital punishment in Scandinavia very early.
While the Scandinavians may have abandoned slavery at home, they were very active slavers in Britain. One of those they took was later become Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland and the first person in recorded history to speak out against slavery. But then I guess you are not really a slave-owner if you merely capture people for ownership by someone else.
So let me try on my Viking trousers when we met with the barbaric monks in Britain (look it up on YouTube). That was appalling. only men, dressed like women, what the fuck, speaking barbar on their knees, unwilling to fight and what is that.
While it's certainly true that both men and women wore tunics at that time, the women's had lace-up bodices for the convenience of suckling their offspring. There is no evidence I know of that monks either gave birth, or suckled babies. The youtube clip I found was very nice. Thanks! I prefer Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli myself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMztkrNbZFY
Rather odd that you despise the monks for their lack of bloodlust. Presumably you admire religious fanatics who slaughter infidels. Each to his own...
@ Pompous Git
I still think you take, at least me, much too seriously, perhaps yourself too.
What one can find on the Wikipedia below, and If you have a link pinpointing Syria then share it with us, I have no problem with that.
On agriculture, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture
"Agriculture involves the domestication of plants. Data from molecular and archaeological research generated over the past 15 years now makes it clear that agriculture began independently over a much larger area of the globe than was once thought, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin, encompassing geographically isolated regions on most continents, but several more have been suggested.[8] The earliest development was around 11,500 years ago separately in both the Fertile crescent and at Chogha Golan in modern-day Iran"
And on the "Fertile Crescent", with a nice map too.
"The Fertile Crescent (also known as the Cradle of Civilization) is a crescent-shaped region containing the comparatively moist and fertile land of otherwise arid and semi-arid Western Asia, the Nile Valley and Nile Delta. Having originated in the study of ancient history, the concept soon developed and today retains meanings in international geopolitics and diplomatic relations.
In current usage, all definitions of the Fertile Crescent include Mesopotamia, the land in and around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; and the Levant, the eastern coast of the Mediterranean sea. The modern-day countries with significant territory within the Fertile Crescent are Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine, beside the southeastern fringe of Turkey and the western fringes of Iran"
Having studied in England but also worked for some time in Germany, a friend once asked me which country I prefer. My attempt for a "diplomatic" answer was that I would take the German infrastructure but the British sense of humour.
Keep it that way. I have no need to offend and I try as hard as I can in not becoming a pompous twat, or git, if you prefer.
As for your sentence "Rather odd that you despise the monks for their lack of bloodlust. Presumably you admire religious fanatics who slaughter infidels. Each to his own."
I am sure we give it the same amount of value, nil.
I still think you take, at least me, much too seriously, perhaps yourself too.
What one can find on the Wikipedia below, and If you have a link pinpointing Syria then share it with us, I have no problem with that.
Perhaps it's the subject that I take seriously. You will find no shortage of levity from The Git, but generally separated from matters of fact.
The Wikipedia article doesn't mention at all the Pre Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) sites of Tell Halula, Tell Ramad or Dja'de El Mughara. It is true that they all fall within the Fertile Crescent, but they also all fall inside modern Syria as I stated. Human mtDNA samples from these sites were taken in order to estimate the demographic contribution of the first farmers to both Central European and Western Mediterranean Neolithic cultures. Please note that this is quite distinct from questions addressing where farming originated.
The researchers also searched for possible signatures of the original Neolithic expansion over the modern Near Eastern and South European genetic pools, and tried to infer possible routes of expansion by comparing the obtained results to a database of 60 modern populations from both regions. The obtained results show that substantial human migrations were involved in the Neolithic spread and suggest that the first Neolithic farmers entered Europe following a maritime route through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands. Serious stuff indeed!
It is of course true that agriculture arose independently; in Asia it was rice cultivation, the Americas potato and maize cultivation. It would be foolhardy indeed to suggest that these played any role in the introduction of farming in Europe which was the subject of the original comment. I don't for one moment suggest you are doing this, but such remarks are really beside the original point.
You name various countries that fall within the Fertile Crescent but fail utterly to mention Egypt! This suggests to me that you know very little of this topic that fascinates me so very much and is pervaded by ever so much bullshit, both in popular literature and academic writing from them who call themselves Post Modernists.
I am glad that you too despise religious fanatics.
A mediaeval funny with an IT twist to demonstrate my sense of humour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
@Pompous Git
Yes thanks, "Øystein og jeg" was new to me, nice and very civil. There was an other joke by them too. "How do you distinguish a male snowman from a female snowman, well it's the snowballs of course."
I once took an African guy to Nokia and he told me he was very nervous about his meeting. I told him not to worry as we are all Africans after all. Some days later I bumped into him in town and he told me I had saved his day and that he had walked into his meeting with a broad smile on his face.
Let's hope the ship gets a good name eventually.
Regards Lars
" That was appalling. only men, dressed like women, what the fuck, speaking barbar on their knees"
those were holy men, priests, learned men speaking LATIN, the most educated of all languages. And you hairy goat-skin wearing, mushroom-piss drinking slave-trading rapists thought the priests were barbarian?
Compare the alphabet the priests used - flowing curved lines lovingly embellished on vellum and parchment with painstaking illumination, against the stunted linear twig-stick deformed spastic "letters" of the runic alphabet. And then tell me who the barbarians were.
"And then tell me who the barbarians were.".
Barbar is, they claim, a onomatopoetic word, a modern version would be a blahblah perhaps. In short somebody who speaks a foreign language, a foreigner, all of us. Barbaric again is when religiosity is added. My priest and holy man is somebody else's infidel, witch doctor... . It has been like that and still is. Looking at human history I would claim it wound be impossible to find a clear winner in that respect.
We are never Barbars, they are, all those others.
Just for fun, jump into somebody else's "trousers". Meet Columbus and his men in the Caribbean as a native, try to meet the settlers as a "red Indian", Brits in India. Have fun, costs nothing.
PS. Why do you find English less educated than Latin. Then again there is this dual meaning of "most" in the English language, and as I cannot hear your voice perhaps I choose the wrong one.
Latin is the pure language of literature, in which the great classics were written. Unadulterated by barbarian loan words from Celtic, Germanic or Scandinavian. With a pure Roman alphabet with none of those stupid extra letters like eth, wynn, yogh and thorn which come from the pillaging Vikings.
Ancient Greek is a close runner up to Latin
Please, I have nothing against your comment. But then again, do you really think groups of people around the world and Europe suddenly decided to invent a new language from scratch. People just popping out of the ground here and there. As a silly side remark, how would you invent a new language without a language. It's a long story, languages evolve and change. With no contact with each other they change radically, just look at how fairly short distances within England have crated different dialects. Arabic numerals, it's a long and interesting story.
The great classics, yes I do agree, but If in Chine they have decided they have their own great classics, then I have no problem with that either.
Human history is damned interesting if at times rather, should I say bloody interesting. So far so good, regardless.
As for the pillaging Vikings, I suppose they did as well as they could. Those who didn't go back home settled down, enriched their surrounding like in England, Normandy, Russia and a bit in Spain and Italy.
Not that many in numbers, I doubt their loot would fill even the lady's WC in the British Museum.
Calm down.
Damn! If we could do snarky trolling suggestions, I was going to attempt to get a U.S. and Canadian voting bloc behind "Lime(ys) on Ice".
Or perhaps combining the nautical theme with trolling, the NorAm bloc could back the name "Americas Cup", so our British cousins could say they finally have one of those.
The hispanic riffraff better read up on their history: British interest in South America was not as casual as many have assumed.
"RSS Nicholas Vansittart" NAOW
"It's_a_ship_not_a_boat_you_landlubbers!"
"It's not a balloon! You stupid little thick-headed Saxon git! It's not a balloon! Balloons is for kiddy-winkies. If you want to play with balloons, get outside.
....
Bismarck? Of course I'm not calling it after Bismarck. It's a Zeppelin. It's nothing to do with bloody Bismarck!
....
It's not a balloon! It's an airship!"
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