Aussies demand Poms cough up first 'Australia' map

Whinging Aussies.

To be fair to them...nicking other peoples stuff is what the country was based upon, so it really is based upon a long tradition.

Doesn't it belong to the French?

Strictly speaking Flinders was employed by the French at the time so the map surely must belong to France?

What next..

What next? The repatriation of the Kohinoor diamond??

Ownership?

Wait, if I draw a picture of Mars are little green men going to come and ask for what is 'rightfully' theirs?

Struggle to understand the concept of ownership here...

Can we get the Bayeux Tapestry 'Back' then

Since this depicts events around the birth of modern Engerland.

Paris 'cos it's in France Innit.

RIch!

Wasn't there a group of people living in Oz prior to the a load of white trash convicts turning up,? Can't remember who they are now, Abba something? It sounds like the current incumbents of Oz seem to have forgotten too!

A beer icon as after 200 years of practice, the Aussies still can't brew a decent pint!

By that logic then...

As the original inhabitants, the Aborigenes can legitimately claim back all of their land rights from the European interlopers that now inhabit the land?

"The Elgin Marbles of Australia"?

So that means it stays here, right?

If the Greeks can't get something of immense cultural significance, the caucasian colonise^W invaders of Terra Australis Incognita can go hang.

They're just

p****d because we beat them in the Ashes. Sorry that should be destroyed them in the Ashes.

The Aussies have now lost their dominance again the old country in sport, we beat them on the rugby field, the cricket pitch, the velodrome, the swimming pool, etc.

You have to feel sorry for them.

Even the Easten Europeans have replaced them in their natural vocation of serving behind the bar in most of londons pubs.

It's not rightfully theirs

But I still think we should give it to them... for a small fee

Good News

Using Aussie Logic™ the Hydrographic Office in Taunton owns Australia.

All we have to do is sell it back to the Aussies and that's the deficit gone.

@ Australians

Type "http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/01/25/flinders_oz_map.jpg" into your browser's address bar. Then click 'File' then 'Print..' . Problem solved.

I would love...

A brief explanation why this map is rightfully Australia's? As far as I can see it was drawn by an RN Officer undertaking the Crown's business.

Rather than starting with polemic, trying to compare a map drawn by someone from another country to stones dismantled from the Parthenon, why didn't they respectfully ask to borrow it for the bicentennial celebrations of Flinders. It wouldn't suprise me if the UK Hydrographic Office would have actually agreed to a long term loan, if their owndership of it wasn't in question. Now I'm sure they would consider nothing of the sort.

If they're prepared to offer a fair price, sell it or trade it to them.

It isn't as if the Greeks wanting Greek Elgin Marbles back.

It is as if the Greeks had the Elgin Marbles and we wanted them.

But clearly the map is worth far far more to them than to us. And they do have more money than us.

We should sell this national treasure (a British citizen created while working for Britain) to the Australians, or trade it to them.

Idiots

I too will go with the "Get the fuck out of Australia then since it isn't your land". I liked Australia...then I went there. Never again. And I've been to Stoke on Trent which is about as welcoming to southerners as Polish man in a BNP meeting

Why don't they just

pay tribute to their founding fathers, and nick it?

*ducks*

Sour Grapes

They want The Ashes back as well I suppose ?

You were soundly thrashed fair and square on home turf so tough titty toenails.

No.

Elgin

The case for the Elgin marbles is a tricky one, because the Ottoman Empire gave them to Lord Elgin who then sold them to the British Museum. In a subsequent enquiry, the paperwork drawn up by the Turks never materialised, although someone did claim to have an Italian translation of it somewhere, but he forgot to turn up to the enquiry. It should also be remembered that the Ottoman Empire used the Parthanon as an arms depot during this time, so one stray spark from a shisha would have vapourised the whole lot anyway...

Additionally, the British Museums Act prohibits the return of any artefact unless it is "worthless or a duplicate"!

Given Australia's Heritage

Shouldn't the Australians just steal the map?

Why not give them a nice copy

And on an other note, suppose the Brits returned the stuff they borrowed from Egypt.

Things are not that straightforward, always, when it comes to history.

Does the map meet any of the requirements for being sent to Australia?

Has it;

1) Been convicted of a serious criminal offence

2) Been found to be too poor to support itself in England and stuffed on a boat

3) Been rounded up by a press gang

4) Been found guilty of being Susan Boyle ugly?

If so then we should stick it on the next convict boat going out, along with Tony Blair, Lord Levy and a whole bunch of other criminal crap we don't need. Tell you what, send the entire Leeds United team as well whilst we're at it.

Thanks for the reminder Australia, what would the civilised world do without a dustbin for our criminals, poor and chavs?

I'm always willing to learn

"Being a school that is named after the great Matthew Flinders, we believe that it is within our responsibility to rise up and fight to reclaim this significant historical map that is rightfully ours."

Right!

I'm off to rename my house "The Royal Mint"....

That's my pension fund sorted.

Sam

(Jimmy Edwards icon because he would have been proud of their avarice)

Students, politicians and academics? Smells like trouble.

Come on Poms, surely you have groups of students, politicians and academics that come up with idiotic ideas? And you wouldn't want us to think the whole country felt the same way?

If you lot want to send the map over for a touring museum for the anniversary of Flinders' death I reckon that'd be a nice gesture. But in 2015 you can take the bloody thing back again, I don't want to have to pay the power bills for the climate controlled room it has to live in.

And of course if you don't want to come to the party we'll just send Warnie over to beat your whole cricket team single handed. And have affairs with half your female population.

Beer because I can't be bothered arguing.

Australia Day plans

As any good Pom in Australia I shall start today reading El Reg and follow that an in-depth study of Australian culture. Then after breakfast...

Dear Australia

Get stuffed. You do realise that Captain Cook only stopped there for a piss, don't you?

PS: http://www.legslarry.org.uk/Pikey/AussieWine.jpg. I need a freshly-'shopped one featuring Ricky Ponting's head on a silver platter.

Modern context

As an Australian, even I can see the logic is truly warped and as others have pointed out, not in the interests of logevity for the document. To put this in a modern context, if I photograph someone's new house for the first time, THEY OWN the photograph?

Not bloody likely. Similarly, if there happens to be some really excellent satellite images of say an Icelandic volcano erupting the owners of the satellite have to hand over rights to Iceland for those images?

Australia has an insurgency movement at work called the Republicans who, though well meaning, don't understand that if you are going to change a system then it needs to be an improvement, not a retrograde step. The current system works rather well, aside from the fact it lets the bleeding hearts be given too much air time.

I'm off for now, just lucky I am out of the country at the moment!?

Not just a dark room

needs to waterproof too......

Fuck 'em they're all crims

why on earth should we give it away in the first place and in the second place only the descendant of the artist would have any prior art claims.

ebay the map to the highest bidder, to pay off some of the UK's national debt would be better!

Ahhh Bullshit...

In another few hundred years it will be fucking dust anyway....

Get a super duper high resolution scan of the map and then engrave it into a slab of pure copper and then run off some prints in carbon ink and mausoleum grade paper... so it lasts a LONG time in hermetically sealed controlled atmosphere argon filled glass cases... along with the copper slab.

Hey.... print the fucking thing out on toilet rolls so we can celebrate Invasion Day while we wipe our arses....

As you can see,...

even tho "Down Under" rates highly on the quality of lifestyle tables, we are not spared the odd gobby dickhead. (Also see "Maoris who want everyone to leave NZ and move back to Europe").

Most antipodeans couldn't give a monkeys about the empire, as long as it stays where it is and doesn't bother us. Get a grip.

Here's one Aussie

who honestly couldn't give a stuff about some old piece of paper.

Although I am amused to see all the Brit posturing and chest thumping. Don't work up too much of a sweat, guys - you don't want to have to take this year's bath a couple months too early, do you?

Ours

If the measurements were taken and drawn by someone in the employ of the Royal Navy then that makes it ours. End of - quit whinging and draw one yourselves!

Ta muchly El Reg..

..for linking to a decent resolution copy of the map. Now does anybody have a log in for an Aussie FleaBay account I could borrow for a while...?

Elgin marbles

This is the greek strategy to recover Parthenon marbles:

http://acartoonaday.blogspot.com/2011/02/elgin-marbles-and-new-troyan-horse.html