For centuries, England and Scotland lived together in an uneasy union until Scotland finally won its independence. Now, the two countries are at loggerheads over the barren, windswept Isle of Wight, closeto England but which Scotland claims to be a historic part of its own patrimony. Some fear that their armed stand-off could lead the world into to a second Cold War.
Whilst the UN calls for a ceasefire, the Scots are rapidly deploying their crack heads on the streets of Shanklin and Ryde, claiming to be liberating the Isle from Generalissimo Cameron's brutal Coalitionista dictatorship. Scottish President Alex Salmond has accused the English of cynically playing the nationalism card to distract the downtrodden masses of Surrey from the fact that their beloved Manchester United are a bit shit these days.
'The people of the Isle of Wight are culturally Scottish in every respect,' Salmond said. 'Their limited economic activity takes place offshore, they are constantly harking back to some mythical past that wasn't really as good as they think, they rarely live beyond 60 ... actually it says here they're all OVER 60. Is that a misprint? I'll get back to you on that one.'
England, which won a brief war against France over the Isle of Wight on the Duckworth-Lewis rule in 1674, has repeatedly denounced Scotland's claim to sovereignty as a legacy of outdated colonialism. Geographically, it claims, the Isle is part of England and could even be reached in two hours by sea from the abandoned port city of Southampton, in the unlikely event that anyone wanted to go there.
Conspiracy theories abound. 'It's all about natural resources, it always is,' said an unnamed source at the UN. 'Salmond wants to control the Isle of Wight's vast of untapped reserves of clotted cream and crabmeat, which are served together deep fried in batter in the plush restaurants of Kilmarnock where his cronies gather. Mark my words, if they get away with this, they'll be wanting Wales next - well maybe not Wales, but...'
