Sure it wasn’t No voters not turning out in Dundee and Glasgow?
Bit surprised that Salmond quit. The UK is down one charismatic politician. I wonder how the SNP will do without him.
I was being generous-- you can’t blame the loss on apathy. Fear, maybe. But not apathy.
I’d rather it was a wakeup call for us electorate, and people will continue to alarm Westminster types by voting at them about stuff. Lots of people voting Green, give Miliband a fright and oust UKIP from the special fellating paddock the media have given them.
And only whisky, mist and eggs are Scotch.
You fed the troll.
You do realize that even if the measure had passed, the Scots would still be British, right? An old Foghorn Leghorn quote comes to mind…
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I heard tell that they were planning to go to work with picks and spades until they had completed a 96-mile-long moat to separate their part of the island.
Did you mean to address this to me? Because I didn’t saying about the Scots staying or not staying British.
[pedantry]
She’d still been have been Queen of Scots, and she’s arguably more Scottish than she is English: her mother was Scottish, whereas her father was very much of German extraction.
[/pedantry]
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Been there, done that.
@codinghorror: odd thing, Wikipedia seems to be allowing you to use single quotes in urls, but if you do, that seems to break the auto-preview thing here. For example:
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No dragon. It’s the united kingdom. Wales is a principality, not a kingdom.
Still colonized by wankers…
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But Northern Ireland’s represented on it (cross of St Patrick), and that’s not even a principality; it’s a province (or possibly a region).
Perhaps I misunderstood your comment. I perceived the comment you were replying to (and the one it was replying to, as well) as jokes - playing on common mistakes such as calling the Scots “Scotch” or calling all UK citizens “British” or not realizing that even if they weren’t in the UK, the Scots would still be British (would it still be called “Great Britain”, though? Is that a political entity or does it refer to the island?). I didn’t think either was really trolling so much as they were just jokes that typical BoingBoing readers might get. I probably should have just scrolled on past without commenting - sorry.
My sources talked about widely spaced watchtowers manned with bagpipe players, repelling any wannabe invaders with music.
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From the Daily Mash link:
“Not even the Chinese have a dragon on their flag. Do you know why? Because they’re serious people who actually get things done.”
The Chinese did have a dragon on their flag.
(It’s in the lower right hand corner, under Siam, and to the right of “France in general”)
[Northern] Ireland has been on the Union Jack since before Irish independence. From the proclamation of Henry VIII as King of Ireland in 1542 until the Irish Free State won its independence in 1922, the English (1542-1603) or British (1603-1922) soverign was Rí na hÉireann, and Ireland was a kingdom. (Arguably, the Irish crown was united with the English in 1155 with the Laudabiliter of Pope Adrian IV, passing the title Dominus Hiberniae to the Angevin kings.).
Now, what ‘Northern Ireland’ is - is a question of some constitutional interest. It may be the last vestige of the Irish crown dating to the Norman Conquest. It may be a reincarnation of the ancient kingdom of Ulster, a tributary kingdom sometimes subject to the High King of Ireland. Or it could be something unto itself, sui juris. But the crown of the United Kingdom, in addition to the strawberry leaves, bears rose, thistle and shamrock. (No leek - as I observed, Wales is a principality.)
Please don’t apologise. “Troll” was a bit harsh on my part: like you, I took the original comment as a joke, but assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that the initial reply to it had taken it seriously.
As to Britain vs Great Britain, this is my understanding of the situation:
- The official name of the political entity is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- ‘Britain’ is a more or less accepted alternative name for #1.
- ‘Great Britain’ is strictly speaking a geographical term, specifically the largest island in #1.
- Nothwithstanding #3, Great Britain is still sometimes also used as a synonym for #1, notably by Conservative politicians, Olympic athletes (‘Team GB’), ISO-3166-1 (offical two-character code is ‘GB’ not ‘UK’) and the French (for whom Britain – Bretagne – when unqualified means Brittany).
- ‘British’ is the adjectival form of both #2 (e.g. British citizen) and #3 (e.g. British coastline).
- If Scotland had’ve declared independence they would have remained British geographically and arguably culturally, but not politically.
But all this is simple compared with sorting out the different meanings of ‘Ireland’ and ‘Irish’.
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Obligatory: the official anthem of the losing side. It’s catchy.
