h a l f b a k e r yA few slices short of a loaf.
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The English Channel has turned out to be of great
benefit
to both England and France since the day we dug it. For
millennia, it has served to protect us from invasion by
any
nation that chooses to head north after conquering
France.
More recently, it has allowed us to purchase cheap
wine
and cigarettes at duty-free prices, doubtless stimulating
the French economy. Were it not for 20 miles of water,
the border between our two nations would probably be
no
more than a token line, with no duty-free trade across
it.
Which brings me (metaphorically only, thank gods) to
Wales. The problem with Wales (apart from the Welsh)
is
that it isn't really a proper country, lacking its own
identity
(and indeed vowels). It's basically the left-hand part of
England, much like England Proper apart from the rain
and
all those hills and slate. As a result, neither Wales nor
England has never had the opportunity benefit properly
from trans-border trade.
I therefore put it to you that both countries would
benefit
from the construction of a substantial body of water
between them. The English Channel Dwy would start
just
to the east of Liverpool, running southwards roughly
along
the existing English-Welsh border. A few concessions
would have to be made to topography, but Wales would
not lose more than a few hundred square miles.
Once the Channel Dwy is finished and Wales is a proper
country, a lucrative trade can be established running
ferries. It may even be possible to dig a Chunnel Dwy
underneath it - indeed, the Welsh are basically a
subterranean nation who would relish the prospect of
mining that actually served a purpose.
The Channel Dwy would also, of course, create
additional
coastline. The existing Welsh coast is actually rather
agreeable as a place to own a holiday cottage, but it is
of
course located entirely on the wrong side of Wales. The
Channel Dwy would create an attractive coastline closer
to
home for Englishmen.
In short, I can see no possible argument against the
construction of the English Channel Dwy, and recommend
that work be put in hand without delay.
Offa's Dyke
http://en.m.wikiped...fa's_Dyke#section_1
For some reason, the digging of the English Channel was more successful than this one. [Ling, Feb 10 2013]
New South Wales
http://www.youtube....watch?v=13RhSc-DaOI
[ytk, Feb 12 2013]
[link]
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Wales! Twinned with coal. A nice place to visit, a great
place to leave. Should I add more? |
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More Wales, or more more? |
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Wales.... Sounds like wails for a good reason. |
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Of course, don't get me started on Ireland (which used to
be called Mireland) or Scotland (which should be called
Scrotaland) |
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// chooses to head north // |
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Or North West, or West ... |
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This is the Germans, isn't it ? No need to be coy ... |
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// neither Wales nor England has never had the opportunity benefit properly from trans-border trade // |
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Not entirely correct. England has purchased coal, iron ore, and a ready supply of dim-witted taffs to send to fight The King's (or Queen's) Enemies in hot places far away and largely get killed in the process, and in return the welsh have received technology transfer benefits, like flint-knapping and the technique of predicting rain by looking at the sky. |
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It's not strictly true, it's just that their super-prominent Neandethalic eyebrow ridges and untonsured locks make it seem to them that they live in perpetual twilight, and lacking an understanding of fire they have no access to artificial light sources. |
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// In short, I can see no possible argument against the construction of the English Channel Dwy, and recommend that work be put in hand without delay. // |
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Your Peerage is hereby set aside, and you are now officially a Living God. |
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//Not entirely correct. England has purchased...// |
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Ah, but for many decades we have had to trade with
the Welsh using English pounds, which is ridiculous.
If they were properly partitioned, they would
probably revert to their ancient currency of slate
chips - far more affwyrdbl, isn't it? |
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p.s. what's the tax position for gods? |
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I dunno. You Brits haven't been doing so hot with the
overseas territories lately. Looking at a map of the
British Empire as of the turn of the 20th century, and
seeing as now you're down to, what, the Falklands and
the Caymans? So you've gone from one-fifth of the
world population to a ruling over a bunch of penguins
and shady bankers in under a century—and you even
lost fully THREE-QUARTERS of Ireland to boot. |
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My guess is as soon as Wales is no longer physically
connected to England proper, you'll be tempted to
trade it for a particularly nice Cornish pasty or
something. True, you'd be getting the better half of
the deal with that one, but then where does that
leave the rest of the world? An autonomous Wales?! I
shudder to think. |
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No, I'm sorry, but we Yanks simply can't allow you to
proceed with this idea, and we'll have to commence
the standard diplomatic negotiations to head this little
plan off. Expect our ICBMs shortly should we detect
heavy equipment moving towards
Gloucester. |
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If you "maintain" the English Channel Dwy properly, you can gradually make it wider and wider to the west, until all the Welsh are packed into Pembrokeshire and lemming into the sea. |
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Heh, I just noticed that the U.K. is apparently fractal.
Wales looks like a little version of Great Britain, and
Pembrokeshire looks like a little version of Wales. |
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//since we dug it// ha ha ha ha ha ha... |
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//and you even lost fully THREE-QUARTERS of Ireland to boot. |
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you say that like it's a bad thing. They wanted to be independant, they are. Sounds reasonable to me. |
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Anyway the obvious flaw in getting rid of foreigners/Wales/whatever group is then the only people the English could hate is themselves... |
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We did take the precaution of inventing Swindon for
that purpose. |
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Excellent! You can be CEO or CTO on this. I'm
thinking we can recruit [8th] for public relations,
maybe [Ubie] as CSE and [Beanie] on marketing. |
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So, is it to throw Prince Charlie's bonnie arse in a rowboat an' make 'im go take up residence? |
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//the only people the English could hate is themselves// - I think they've been at that for a while. Most of the UK geography I know, I have learned here at the 'bakery; and I think almost every place name on those said Isles which has been mentioned here has been in conjunction with an insult. Excepting, of course, pub names. |
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OK, so someone has to say what a Dwy is. Google says something about operating a vehicle while vomiting, and I sense that is not the meaning here. |
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// every place name on those said Isles which has been
mentioned here has been in conjunction with an insult // |
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The thing about England is that you can't go far in any
direction until you hit either the sea or Scotland, which is
very much like the sea in that it has always been there and
has no plans of not being there anytime soon and there's
not a bloody thing you can do about it, they just keep
running out of the hills screaming incomprehensible oaths
and chopping about with those giant swords they're so
proud of. |
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Er... Anyhow, England is a place where you can't go far
before you've been almost everywhere, so when somebody
says "I mean, it was like a trip to _____inghampshirestoke!"
you know what they mean contextually because you've
either been there yourself or know sixteen people who
have and are related to five of them. That combined with
several hundred years of drizzle and self-loathing has
reduced a great deal of their referential humor to a
geographical in-joke. |
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//someone has to say what a Dwy is// It is Wylsh for
"two", isn't it now boyo. |
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The Bristol Channel makes a good start - how about digging a big old trench, ostensibly as a great civil engineering "canal" project, that could be repurposed later on. |
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That's a great point that not_morrison_rm makes regarding hate by the English. At present, the UK's nation-agglomorate nature allows the English to express their cosy John Bull xenophobia within the borders of the UK, and this unpleasant attitude doesn't seep out to stink up the wider world's view of the UK (specifically, the Queen sitting in the castle drinking tea with a Beefeater who has bad teeth and a drawstring lightswitch in his lavatory). If we bring about physical & political separation between E, S, W & NI then the relfexive attitude of the English towards S, W & NI changes from being disguised as a sort of chummy pan-British self-deprecation to being much more obviously no better and no different than any of England's other petty, unreciprocated rivalries. Yes, just as you make excuses for the socially inept friend because you are fearful what might happen to them if they were left to go it alone, it is important therefore that S, W & NI do what is morally right by the people of England, and remain within the Union. |
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Given how must they seem to hate the rest of its nations, I've sometimes wondered why the English don't just secede from the United Kingdom. It's certainly clear up those pesky 'can an independant Scotland automatically join the EU' questions. Scotland could keep the UK's EU membership, and England could keep the xenophobia and euroscepticism in relative peace. Sort of like Switzerland, only without the neutrality, riches, and truly alarming border defenses. |
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Yeah, it's hard to trust an armed neutral. |
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"I have a very large gun, but I will not shoot anyone with
it." |
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"I just told you: I'm not going to shoot anyone. You can
trust me." |
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"Then what is the gun for?" |
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"It's for shooting people." |
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"But you're not going to do that." |
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Not surprising, no, but still alarming. They have bridges wired to collapse onto potential invading armies. I certainly wouldn't want to give it a go ... |
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//bridges wired to collapse onto potential invading
armies.// So do some other countries, it's just that
the Swiss are methodical and don't appreciate the
novelty of surprise. |
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[gisho] is onto something here. You could have the
UK of NI, S, W, and maybe even I would want to join
in at that point, although they would still be required
to fight NI for old time's sake. Not certain how the
church would align... |
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Perpendicular to common sense would seem most likely. |
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I think I've got this one figured out. Shortly after
completion of "English Channel Dwy", I suspect
that work will begin on "Hadrian's Channel".
Following successful conclusion of these works,
the North Sea, Irish Sea, English Channel Dwy and
English Channel Mk1 will form a continuous body of
water. MaxCo will propose that the individual
names of these bodies of water are no longer
appropriate. Instead a single name "Max's Massive
Moat" will be substituted. Concomitantly, the 60
million or so within the confines of this moat will
find themselves accused of "blatant and persistent
trespassing" and invited to "leave quickly and
quietly" or "meet the dogs". |
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On the plus side, Wales, Scotland and France will
find that they get a significant boost in the
standards of spoken English in response to the
refugee crisis/trespasser ejection. |
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//The problem with Wales (apart from the Welsh) is that it isn't really a proper country, lacking its own identity //
Longshanks would be proud of you. The thing is though, without the help of Welsh technology we wouldn't have been able to sustain our hostility against France for nearly so long. - |
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Nor without Welsh complicity with the French and
Spaniards. Hell, the Welsh word for Wales is actually
Arabic in origin, from when they used to be pals with the
Moors. |
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In the same way that the UK is unable to deport all foreigners, as there would only be British food left to eat. |
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Which is roughly parallel with the use of illegal immigrant Mexican workers in the US. Whoever does benefit from this cheap labour would have to start paying real wages and it would create inflation in the economy. |
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Maybe work backwards from Z. All Zimbabwean
restaurants to go, first. Closely followed by Welsh
restaurants. |
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Chinese, and Chips quite safe. |
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The Welsh do have some admirers - Australians are such admirers of South Wales that they named a significant portion of their country after it. |
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I think they were admiring the Welsh for not
following them to Australia. |
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// Australians are such admirers of South Wales that
they named a significant portion of their country
after it// or Australians demonstrated how simple it
was to improve upon the original, even starting with
a section of the world where everything is
poisonous. |
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*However, the old Jersey remains entirely superior to
the New Version, that's Americans for you. Bigger
and worse. |
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<blink font>New</bf> Orleans, however, seems like a
toss-up. |
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The Lord has delivered us to a truly wondrous land! Lush
subtropical plans stretch as far as the eye can see. It's
ninety degrees in the shade even though it's November.
There are herds of seven foot tall two legged creatures
bouncing across the landscape at tremendous speeds. |
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Yes. Do you know what it reminds me of? Wales. |
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What, the vast terra incognita with flora and fauna hitherto
undreamt of by science puts you in mind of nothing so
much as Rhyl?” |
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//There are herds of seven foot tall two legged
creatures bouncing across the landscape at
tremendous speeds// |
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A pretty accurate description of the Wales Rugby
team. |
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[ytk], you get my Annotation of the Week Award.
Sadly, it carries no financial (or indeed
certificatorial) element, but it is yours. If you have
access to a safety pin, cardboard and some coloured
pens, you are entitled to make an Annotation of the
Week Award badge. |
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I wish I could accept the hono(u)r, but that bit is
from a sketch by Mitchell and Webb. (link) |
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Ah well. Have the award anyway - I didn't know it. |
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When somewhere gets named New Milton Keynes, truly the last days of the human race are at hand. |
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Anyway, I still prefer Inaccessible Island and Cape Disappointment. Huzzah for honest cartographers. |
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IT got the name because the coast is a little similar to
South Wales, in that there are hundreds of miles of
dangerous, big, fuckoff cliffs facing the ocean there. |
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After that, the similarity ends. New South Wales has
sunshine, dry ground and plenty of trees, unlike South
Wales. (It's also full of whiny cunts and drug-dealing
bikie gangs, nowadays.) |
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Sounds like southern Maine, in that respect. We've got a
whole north/south prejudice thing going here. Mainers
from the northern half of the state and the Downeast
region scorn southern Mainers because they're not 'real
Mainers', and southern Mainers scorn us northerners
because we have a nasty habit of making the
reasonable assumption that they're cathinone-snorting
criminals and shooting them on sight. But don't worry,
we're still quite freindly to outsiders. |
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I met that guy when I was down in the glades in 1999.
Come to think of it, I also met him in Yorkshire, and I ran
into him down the store the other day. |
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Our internal North vs. South vs. Downeast thing isn't our
only grudge, mind you. As a state, we collectively regard
our western neighbor with sneering condescension, and of
course we have our own private term for residents of the
Union's sixth state. |
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Here in the states where it takes more than an hour's
jog or so to get from one side or the other, we see
the smaller states' fiefdom pissing contests as quaint,
like hamsters defending their comfy spot in the cage. |
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^ As we Canadians smugly observe the goings-on in that smaller country to the south. |
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Indeed, you like to observe closely as most of Canada
lives within about 5 feet of the border... |
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// the states where it takes more than an hour's jog or so
to get from one side or the other // |
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Maine is geographically quite large for an East Coast state,
actually. An hour's jog around here will only get you lost in
the woods. Anyway, we have the comfy spot; it's all these
other, smaller, whinier hampsters that have their noses
out of joint. |
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//Indeed, you like to observe closely as most of Canada lives within about 5 feet of the border// |
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True, true. The same as most of Australia lives within 5 feet of the ocean. Its great fun to watch and occasionally visit - but you wouldn't want to build your house or raise your children in it. |
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Hmm, in the UK, if we all breath in at the same time, someone ends up in the sea. |
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There's probably a "you can breath in now" rota app in the works. |
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