西兰独立公国

《装腔指南》P211 

The Independent Principality of Sealand

Seven miles off the east coast of England, there is a country. It isn’t a very big country. To be precise, it’s the smallest country in the world, with a surface area that extends to no more than 6,000 square feet, which is about twice the size of a tennis court. You won’t find it on Google Maps and it isn’t a member of Nato or the EU. But I know it exists, because I’ve been there. The full name of this obscure speck of territory is the Independent Principality of Sealand and it has a history that is about as rock ’n’ roll as could be imagined.

During the Second World War, the Navy built a handful of fortresses in the North Sea and kitted them out with anti-aircraft guns. They were later abandoned and left to rust away, pounded by the wind and waves. In the 1960s, some were commandeered by so-called radio ‘pirates’, who used them to broadcast rock music to the nation’s teenagers, while making money from advertising. (Commercial radio stations were then banned in the UK, but the forts were outside jurisdiction.) When the British government outlawed the practice, the Bates family from Essex hung on to their fort, which was called Roughs Tower. They rechristened it Sealand and on Christmas Day 1967 they proclaimed it an independent nation.

The Bates family remains in possession of Sealand to this day. The authorities haven’t intervened, at least partly because it isn’t so easy to launch a maritime operation to retake a military structure that is defended by armed occupants. The Bateses are a pugnacious lot. They have a sense of humour, too. They’ve designed a flag, coins, stamps and passports for their fledgling country, and the head of the family – first Major Roy Bates; now his son Michael – styles himself ‘Prince’. In 1987, when the Territorial Sea Act extended the reach of British territorial waters from three miles to twelve (meaning Sealand would now be automatically British), the outraged Bateses responded by declaring that they had also extended their territorial reach to twelve miles. This, they explained, meant the town of Felixstowe on the Suffolk coast now belonged to them.

P211 西兰独立公国

在离英格兰东海岸七英里的地方，有一个国家，它不是一个很大。确切地说，它是世界上最小的国家，面积不超过6000平方英尺，大约是一个网球场的两倍。它不是北约或欧盟的成员，你也不会在谷歌地图上找到它，但我知道它的存在，因为我去过。这片鲜为人知的小领土全名是西兰独立公国，它的历史可想而知。

第二次世界大战期间，海军在北海建起了几座堡垒，并装备了高射炮。它们后来被遗弃，在风吹浪打中日渐锈蚀。在20世纪60年代，堡垒被“海盗”电台征用，他们利用这些电台向全国青少年播放摇滚音乐，并通过广告赚钱。(当时商业电台在英国被禁止，但堡垒不在司法管辖范围内。)当英国政府宣布这一行为违法时，来自埃塞克斯的贝茨家族坚守着他们的堡垒“怒涛塔”。他们将其重新命名为“西兰”，并在1967年圣诞节宣布其为独立国家。直到今天，西兰仍归贝茨家族所有。当局尚未进行干预的部分原因，至少是因为要发动海上行动收复一个由武装人员保卫的军事建筑并非易事。

贝茨家族是一群好斗的人，他们也很有幽默感。他们为这个羽翼未丰的国家设计了国旗、硬币、邮票和护照，还有主人——罗伊·贝茨少校一世。现在他的儿子迈克尔把自己称为“王子”。1987年，英国通过《领海法案》将领海范围从3英里扩大到12英里(这意味着西兰群岛现在自动归英国所有)，愤怒的贝茨家族回应称，他们也将其领海范围扩大到了12英里。他们解释说，这意味着萨福克海岸的费利克斯托镇现在隶属于他们。