[HN Gopher] Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronati...
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Great Bitter Lake Association, the Sort-of-Micronation Formed in
the Suez Canal
Author : mellowhype
Score : 260 points
Date : 2021-04-01 06:49 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (99percentinvisible.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (99percentinvisible.org)
| tshanmu wrote:
| This is so HN. Thanks!
| kevwil wrote:
| More of this please! Far more interesting and entertaining than
| anything coming out of Hollywood or Washington D.C. lately.
| aasasd wrote:
| IIRC Sealand sells post cards, as part of its general merchandise
| thing (along with nobility titles). Not sure about stamps though.
|
| Another quasi-governmental curio is that, again IIRC, Spain has
| _several_ , maybe even a dozen or something, local currencies.
| All being traded just fine in their communities. (I think the US
| also has or had at least a couple, though those were essentially
| just checks of some co-op banks, and thus nothing new in the
| country.)
|
| Also I remember reading about a currency established by a gang
| that controlled a part of a city--and which currency ended up
| being used more actively in the city than the country's currency,
| because it was more stable. Don't recall where it was: possibly
| northern Africa, maybe Ethiopia or Eritrea.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| > Spain has several, maybe even a dozen or something, local
| currencies. All being traded just fine in their communities.
|
| I've lived in Spain for decades, never heard of such thing.
| Depending how you count you could argue there are a dozen
| spoken languages, but currencies? That requires a big citation.
| JNRowe wrote:
| Not GP, but I presume they're talking about _alternative_
| currencies1. Things like the Ehki in Bilbao or Eusko across
| the border in Basque France. I 'm picking those two on
| purpose because they make a point about it sometimes simply
| being about regional politics and not generic fiscal
| localism2.
|
| Depending on how you draw the line you could, for example,
| include the Barcelona Rec3 too. I think I draw the line at
| physical notes, but YMMV.
|
| _Edit to add_ : Looks like the ehki is digital only now.
|
| 1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_currency
|
| 2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_localism
|
| 3 https://ca.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurs_Economic_Ciutada
| aasasd wrote:
| Might've mistaken with Basque country in particular and
| France in general--guess I majorly botched all those vague
| recollections in the comment.
|
| Wikipedia lists four local currencies in France: Abeille,
| Eusko, Kroko, Occitan
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency). And also
| says, "The eusko is one of a number of currencies that are
| active in the Basque Country".
|
| Though apparently the UK has about five current and four past
| community currencies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c
| ommunity_currencies_i...
| yitchelle wrote:
| Side topic - Roman Mars does a great job hosting this podcast.
| Has many, many different takes on the status quo.
| ericol wrote:
| This is an excellent post. Bear in mind it's a transcription of a
| podcast episode (And my advise would be to hear it).
|
| The last time this one was on HN it got me hooked on podcasts.
| 99% is usually of a good quality, but this episode was just too
| good.
| garyclarke27 wrote:
| Surprisingly interesting read, I had never heard of this. After 8
| years - only the German ships where able to make it out under
| their own steam!
| mladeny wrote:
| Only if we build things like we used to... West Germany and
| Germany in general has been known for the reliability and
| durability of their goods. German quality is top notch.
| pimlottc wrote:
| I'd guess it was as much an issue of keeping up regular
| maintenance as the initial quality of the vessels. I mean, if
| your ship was stuck in one place for years it'd be pretty
| natural to start letting things slide...
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| i would think so as well. Where are ships made anyway? It's
| more like only the Germans cared enough (about the ship or
| the cargo) to maintain it. I very much doubt the other
| companies were negligent.
| jandrese wrote:
| The US ship might have been able to steam out had it not been
| sunk by an errant missile from the neighboring war.
| newdude116 wrote:
| Shameless plug:
|
| A micronation that I am a member of:
|
| https://www.letsbuyanisland.com/
| ipaddr wrote:
| As an owner can you visit?
| boringg wrote:
| Didn't know what I was clicking on here... totally worth it.
| Great little piece of history. I love this kind of weird ripple
| effect that happens in the world.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Same, I don't have an interest in stamp collection in general,
| but owning a formal memorabilium from something like this is
| great.
| lmilcin wrote:
| > It runs vertically between Egypt and the rest of the Middle
| East (...)
|
| Pretty sure it runs horizontally. Vertical channel would be
| called waterfall.
| s0rce wrote:
| I guess a vertical navigable canal is a lock.
| lmilcin wrote:
| You can also have a lift.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_Wheel
| alphachloride wrote:
| Vertically when you look at it on a map, where north is facing
| up.
|
| But we both knew that.
| lmilcin wrote:
| You are ruining the joke due to lack of sense of humor.
|
| Also:
|
| What if north is facing down?
|
| What if map is not on a wall but on a table?
|
| What if map is not oriented not in north-south direction?
| macintux wrote:
| My science teacher in middle school insisted rivers didn't
| flow north, because on a globe north was up.
|
| Yes, we tried showing her the Nile.
| [deleted]
| Cerium wrote:
| The Panama canal has some vertical portions, but the Suez has
| none.
| mxmilkiib wrote:
| Aside; 'Bitter Lake' documentary by Adam Curtis (2015)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84P4dzow1Bw
| sorokod wrote:
| By the way, the Egyptian stamps are marked UAR [1], an echo of
| the union between Egypt and Syria.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Republic
| nanna wrote:
| Surely someone will make a movie or a series out of this in the
| future.
|
| For posterity, how long will that take?
|
| I'll start the bidding at ten years.
| RubenvanE wrote:
| This happened in the sixties, during and after the six-day war
| between Israel and Egypt. Therefore I think a movie could be
| made out of this story any day now.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| See Curtis -- bitter lake?
| smcl wrote:
| It's been a couple of years since I watched it, but I don't
| recall the GBLA being mentioned in the film.
|
| For anyone interested, the film we're talking about is the
| 2015 documentary "Bitter Lake" by Adam Curtis which tells
| the story of how an agreement signed on the Great Bitter
| Lake back in 1945 could have had an unexpectedly huge
| impact on how the modern world developed through the next
| 60+ years.
|
| It's long, but entertaining and as always has a great
| soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84P4dzow1Bw
| arethuza wrote:
| Pretty sure the GBLA isn't mentioned, but I think the
| Six-Day War probably was?
| 12ian34 wrote:
| Indeed, coincidentally just watched this a week before the
| Ever Given blockage. It's relevant to this thread. The
| soundtrack, the archival footage and the pairing between
| them makes for fantastic viewing, although I personally
| found this not as intellectually interesting and even more
| 'tenuous' than Hypernormalisation or Can't Get You Out of
| My Head.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| What would you do as a plot? The pilot episode with the start
| of the war would surely be interesting, but the wait+party time
| of the next 8 years would probably not make for a good plot.
| Except if you'd want to make a party movie, but that would
| probably go against the spirit of the GBLA.
| jdwithit wrote:
| There's certainly been successful films made around much
| less. Hell, Castaway is basically 3 hours of Tom Hanks
| talking to a coconut and it grossed over $400 million.
| nanna wrote:
| Opening scenes - war, realising they were stuck. Then the
| drama of eight years of hanging about and drinking - there
| must have been romances, conflicts, gossip, smuggling, fights
| among the crew. And what's the story of the one female
| member? Plenty to make a great film out of I bet. And if not
| someone could always 'base' it on 'real life events'.
| 3v1n0 wrote:
| On another micronaton which was founded in the Adriatic sea you
| can watch "The island of Roses" on Netflix.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| The 1.5 million beer bottles sounded like a gross exaggeration,
| but with 14 ships, over 8 years, that's about 34 bottles per day
| per ship, which makes it seem potentially plausible for a bunch
| of very bored sailors, depending on how big the skeleton crews
| were.
|
| I like that apparently some form of agreement was reached to keep
| them well supplied.
| uoaei wrote:
| I would imagine a surrogate market has been made using beer as
| a form of payment or currency.
| NoNotTheDuo wrote:
| Reminds me of a few years ago. We did a fishing trip on
| vacation in Costa Rica. Just myself and my wife, and two crew
| members on the fishing boat.
|
| We came across a giant trawling boat and the captain of our
| fishing boat asked if we wanted to change what we were
| fishing for. We said yes, and our guys gathered a bunch of
| random stuff from the galley and put it into a plastic sack:
| open bags of chips, beer, soda, other snacks, etc.
|
| We pulled up next to the trawler and the captain negotiated a
| trade: our food and drinks for a giant basket of their bait.
|
| Both boats ended up happy and we had a great time using their
| bait!
| mckirk wrote:
| I was fully expecting this to be about a micronation founded by
| the crews of the stranded freighters last week. Wouldn't have
| been the strangest thing to happen recently.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Me too, it would be bound to happen if they would start to be
| stuck longer that they did.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Without a second ship at the other end to trap people in, no
| one was gonna be stuck more than a couple weeks; they'd all
| eventually decide to unload at a port or go around Africa.
| pjmlp wrote:
| True, but still they would need to socielize during those
| weeks.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| That's already standard. The Asia-Europe route the Suez
| is used primarily for takes weeks already. Sailors get
| good at isolation and getting to know the dozen or two
| people on the boat.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I did see a few ships that were attached to each other; would
| not be surprised if the crews had a get-together on there. I
| mean they would all have been quarantined for weeks already
| (broadly speaking), so low chance of getting the 'rona.
| mckirk wrote:
| I had seen one comment on here suggesting we fly over there
| and start a Burning Man Middle East[1].
|
| > Days of partying in the desert, opening random containers,
| driving little excavators.
|
| Oh what could have been...
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26590033
| arcticbull wrote:
| That's a great way to end up in turbo-prison en route to
| execution -- unless you're a prince of some sort. They're
| not a fan of drugs, to put it mildly.
| samstave wrote:
| >They're not a fan of Market Competition,...
| mckirk wrote:
| Damn, that's a good point.
|
| I suppose we'd need a small sovereign piece of land for
| that kind of thing... a kind of micronation, if you will.
| gumby wrote:
| I nice lockdown story.
| mladeny wrote:
| Fantastic morning read. Thank you so much for sharing. What a
| story and display of human decency and comradeship at a time of
| war.
|
| Stories like these need to be told more often, as they give hope
| to humanity in the toughest of times.
| Shivetya wrote:
| Related : As the article mentioned, if you are a serious
| collector then ebay is your place. Even the most obscure of items
| can be found and in some cases in significant quantity to let you
| get an understanding on value.
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