Wednesday 1 December 2010

Wanna Buy A Ship For Xmas?

Throughout history, the British Navy has given Johnny Foreigner a damn good licking on a regular basis. Even with a one armed, one eyed Admiral who suffered with chronic seas-sickness, we ruled the waves and now you can own a piece of the British Navy with the purchase of HMS Invincible.
None of this high level negotiations between Governments, the aircraft carrier has been put up for sale on the military auction site here.
I didn't even know we had a military auction site to sell our ships on but there it is, amongst unwanted desert ops trousers and army issue folding shovels.
If you do fancy owning the flagship of the British Navy, be advised that you have to supply your own jets and helicopters but don't despair, the site also offers a Harrier Jump jet facsimile from the Royal Air Force. Also up for grabs are a range of armoured cars.
With only four weeks to Christmas and if you still haven't got that present for that special someone, nothing says Merry Christmas sweetheart more than a rusty and broken down cast off from the British Navy.
North Korea need not apply.

11 comments:

David G. said...

Lucy, wouldn't it be great if all the warships in the world were to be sold for scrap AND all the fighter jets and tanks and the other hideous weapons that mankind has invented to kill his own kind.

Humans seem to be predisposed towards killing, some more so than others. Since the decline of the British Empire, the Yanks are vying with the Germans to achieve the top killing nation of all time award.

It's sick, really sick! We are little better than primitive beasts.

Lucy said...

I am with you David on scrapping all warships, tanks, jets and all war paraphernalia. The silver lining of the recession is that the military is being cut and although there will still be ships and tanks, not so many of them.

David G. said...

The WikeLead cables suggest that the U.K. is a key supporter of the imperial American Empire.

Given Britain's place in the world now I guess supporting the American regime is its only choice but surely a poor choice given America's track record.

Mind you, the Australian Government sees America through rose-coloured glasses too.

They will pay a heavy price for that one day!

GDAEman said...

If only we could get the US to sell off some of it's Navy. Of course, the way the transnat corps are growing, they'll buy 'em up and rule the world! Oh, yea. They already do. Never mind.

Cheezy said...

"The WikeLead cables suggest that the U.K. is a key supporter of the imperial American Empire."

Yes, before these leaks came out, nobody would have ever suspected that the UK is a key supporter (and Australia just a supporter) of many aspects of US foreign policy.

David G. said...

Cheezy, you're like a silly little yapping dog always biting at my ankles. Piss off!

P.S. I can't help it if America and Russia had to save your country from the Germans (as did we Australians).

And it's not my fault that Britain's great empire collapsed into nothingness.

And it's not my fault that the U.S., since WW2, has decided to use military force to try to control the world for its own benefit.

Some psycho-therapy might help you!

Chris said...

I see the colonies are getting uppity again.

Lucy said...

I have a great response to Americans when they say they won the War and we would all be speaking German now if it wasn't for them, i say they would be speaking English now if it wasn't for the French. Haven't got an instant response for when it comes from an Australian though. I'd probably try and work in the Ashes somehow.

Cheezy said...

More excellent work, Dave-o... You've launched a stirring and compelling response to my post suggesting that your initial comment (that the UK and Australia both support most US foreign policy goals) might have been rather obvious and banal.

I now concede that your insight was actually brilliant.

And you're absolutely right that we didn't really know this before WikiLeaks. How can I have been so blind?

As an aside though, I'm not too sure what your implication that Australia saved the world from fascism was all about... (Did they save it so they could use it themselves, in Queensland, against Aborigines?)...

But I remain rather bemused by your constant reductionism of all matters to national boundaries, and subsequent categorising of people within certain political jurisdictions as being somehow better or worse than other people resident in certain other jurisdictions. Your wholesale categorising of Americans in this way is particularly striking and infantile.

Why do you do it, Dave? Does it make this complicated old world easier for you to understand? If so, that's sweet.

Perhaps doing this (and inventing a world in which people who happen to have been born in the same country as yourself saved the world) makes you feel better about your many flaws as an individual, even if these feats were performed many years before you were born (I assume).

If so, then that's fine too. I don't want you feeling sad.

However, if you do this to try and annoy people, then I reckon you're pissing up the wrong tree.

Personally, all this overt nationalism stuff isn't for me. It's a bit infantile, in my opinion.

I subscribe to the worldview of the great Bill Hicks, when he was asked whether he was 'proud to be an American'.... "Well... My parents fucked there... I didn't have much to do with it".

So, a word of advice, young cobber. If you want to wind someone up with a bit of 'pommie-bashing', then you should be on the lookout for a) someone for whom these nation-state distinctions matter as much as they do for you, b) a British nationalist, and c) someone who actually cares what an intellectually-challenged saloon-bar leftist (who can't debate his way out of a wet paper bag) thinks about the world and the relative merits of people who live in certain countries.

I think you might have the most trouble locating c)... Best of luck with it though.

PS: How are you going with 'A Secret Country'? Have you finished it yet?

David G. said...

Cheezy, you won't understand it but:

"There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise."

Francis Bacon. 1561-1626

Cheezy said...

Thanks for sharing that, Dave. It's beautiful. And so deep.