This is either the best scam ever, or well...THE BEST SCAM EVER!!!
And boy is it small! It’s just a wartime fort perched on two concrete towers in the North Sea (pictured above - great location), built in World War II as an anti-aircraft base to repel German bombers.
About forty years ago, retired British army major Paddy Roy Bates went to live there with his family and promptly declared the platform, perched seven miles off the east coast of England and just outside Britain's territorial waters, to be the “principality of Sealand.”
The self-styled “Prince Roy” (with wife, Joan pictured above top) adopted a flag, chose a national anthem and minted silver and gold coins. Yeah, yeah, there are people in Mental Institutions who’ve done the same thing, only claiming they’re Napoleon or Mary Queen of Scots.
Apparently the family fought off an attempt by Britain's Royal Navy to evict them and also repelled a 1978 attempt to seize Sealand by force led by a group of German and Dutch businessmen.
Guys, guys GUYS!!! From the Third Reich to bungling a hostile takeover of a North Sea platform from a single family of possibly insane Brits, in less than thirty-five years?!
Your first mistake may have been engaging in such a “war” with the Dutch as your Allies. Just thinking out loud, here.
“Prince Roy (the former Paddy Roy Bates), now 85, lives in Spain.
His son Michael (54 years old), who is brokering any prospective deals, told BBC Radio on Monday his family had been approached by estate agents with clients "who wanted a bit more than a bit of real estate, they wanted autonomy."
When asked what it was like living on what Michael described as a cross between a house and a ship, the 54-year-old replied, "The neighbors are very quiet. There is a good sea view."
Great, but how much annual foreign aid do we get?!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070109/od_nm/island_dc
And boy is it small! It’s just a wartime fort perched on two concrete towers in the North Sea (pictured above - great location), built in World War II as an anti-aircraft base to repel German bombers.
About forty years ago, retired British army major Paddy Roy Bates went to live there with his family and promptly declared the platform, perched seven miles off the east coast of England and just outside Britain's territorial waters, to be the “principality of Sealand.”
The self-styled “Prince Roy” (with wife, Joan pictured above top) adopted a flag, chose a national anthem and minted silver and gold coins. Yeah, yeah, there are people in Mental Institutions who’ve done the same thing, only claiming they’re Napoleon or Mary Queen of Scots.
Apparently the family fought off an attempt by Britain's Royal Navy to evict them and also repelled a 1978 attempt to seize Sealand by force led by a group of German and Dutch businessmen.
Guys, guys GUYS!!! From the Third Reich to bungling a hostile takeover of a North Sea platform from a single family of possibly insane Brits, in less than thirty-five years?!
Your first mistake may have been engaging in such a “war” with the Dutch as your Allies. Just thinking out loud, here.
“Prince Roy (the former Paddy Roy Bates), now 85, lives in Spain.
His son Michael (54 years old), who is brokering any prospective deals, told BBC Radio on Monday his family had been approached by estate agents with clients "who wanted a bit more than a bit of real estate, they wanted autonomy."
When asked what it was like living on what Michael described as a cross between a house and a ship, the 54-year-old replied, "The neighbors are very quiet. There is a good sea view."
Great, but how much annual foreign aid do we get?!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070109/od_nm/island_dc
2 comments:
Fascinating. I think we should try to put a bid together.
I first learned of Sealand because of a web hosting company that operates there called HavenCo. Pretty cool idea.
This would really feed that inner megalomaniac in all of us!
I'm in, provided of course that the very first thing we do is get ourselves that official "Third World Nation" status.
Then we could say something about how hard it is to keep a lid on local passions and a propensity among "our people" for international terrorism, and that only massive amounts of foreign aid will assure that we remain good "world citizens."
Then we could demand a place on the UNSC.
If we make that case to France first, I think we'd be in very good shape going forward. They seem to capitulate to anything.
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