In 2012, the editors of Vice ran an article aimed at would-be contributors to their self-avowedly edgy magazine headed ‘Never Pitch Any of These Things to Us Again’. Among a list of no-nos that included burlesque dancing and art made of bodily fluids was the principality of Sealand. They wrote:
OK, so an independent sovereign state floating just outside the UK sounds great, right? Except, well it’s not really, is it? I mean, it’s not an independent sovereign state like, say, France. It’s more like a big, floating turd of mental illness in the North Sea.
Unsurprisingly, Dylan Taylor-Lehman, the American author of this doggedly respectful account of how an abandoned, rusting former second world war naval fort in the North Sea became ‘the world’s most stubborn micronation’, hardly subscribes to this point of view. A 12-page appendix is supplied to support Sealand’s legal claim to a France-like stateness.
Sealand’s trappings of nationhood include a constitution, anthem, flag, stamps and passports
Yet both turds and madness do put in appearances here.
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