Of Redshanks
Redshanks are wading birds; their typical habitat is shores with lots of sand/silt/mud where they can hunt for wriggly things. Rockall is fairly far removed from that type of environ.
Brit adventurer Nick Hancock is approaching two weeks in a survival podule atop the North Atlantic outcrop of Rockall in his attempt to spend 60 days on the world's remotest islet in aid of Help for Heroes. Nick Hancock and his survival podule atop Rockall. Pic: Nick Hancock Twitching: Nick Hancock and his survival podule …
There is the odd Russian Submarine, Chinese Factory ship passing by but....
Don't for get the spy overhead. The NSA will be watching closely in case he takes a pee that they can see. Then a big black submarine flying the Stars and Stripes will appear and remove him to Gitmo because he is clearly a danger to the civilised world.
Cue Joan Collin's joke And only 3 million people have been up the Eiffel tower.
Now at the end, the article infers that the Scottish claim it!!! Hmmm.
Sgeir Rocail, hmm an ancient pebble thrown out to sea by Finn Mcool back in the days when men were men and sheep were nervous. Nearer to Ireland than anywhere else but hey ho.
Rock on Rockall
Oh the empire is finished no foreign lands to seize
So the greedy eyes of England are looking towards the seas
Two hundred miles from Donegal, there's a place that's called Rockall
And the groping hands of Whitehall are grabbing at its walls
Oh rock on Rockall, you'll never fall to Britain's greedy hands
Or you'll meet the same resistance that you did in many lands
May the seagulls rise and pluck your eyes and the water crush your shell,
And the natural gas will burn your ass and blow you all to hell.
<snip>
Specifically in reference to the act of parliament claiming it from Wikipedia
The Island of Rockall Act 1972 (c. 2) is a British Act of Parliament formally incorporating the island Rockall into the United Kingdom to protect it from Irish and Icelandic claims. The Act as originally passed declared that the Island of Rockall was now part of the Scottish county of Inverness-shire (it is now in the Western Isles).
It is a lot closer to St. Kilda than Co. Donegal anyway, so it's ours.
Shame he wont still be there on 18th Sept. It would be fun to get a polling station on it.
Or Michael Flanders and Donald Swann (in the days of the Lord Chamberlain's "blue pencil", no less):
The fleet set sail for Rockall,
Rockall,
Rockall,
To free the isle of Rockall
From fear of foreign thrall.
We sped across the planet
To find this lump of granite.
One rather startled gannet;
In fact we found... Rockall.