Comments on: Go Lions!

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:52:07 +0000

“Australian Rules” football: is that the riot performed by ozziemorons?

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 21:47:27 +0000

What’s all this about Australian Rules football? Surely an oxymoron.

By: Phoenician in a time of Romans

Phoenician in a time of Romans — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 06:22:37 +0000

Damn and blast those infernal kiwis for their superior play..

Two-nil, two-nil, Twoooo-nil, T-

What am I saying? I didn’t even bother watching the game.

Sorry, momentary loss of reason to patriotic ferver.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 08:26:39 +0000

Damn and blast those infernal kiwis for their superior play..

By: Errol

Errol — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 20:55:50 +0000

I wouldn’t suggest applying logic to the situation, you’ll just confuse everyone! :-)

I don’t see any problem with counting the island of Ireland as one of the ‘British Isles’ geographically. However, lots of people get upset when you do this. Presumably the same people that objected to ‘God Save The Queen/King’ being played in Ireland when teams who normally use it as their National Anthem visited.

And while they are commonly referred to in the media as “the British Lions” or “the British and Irish Lions”, I assume the significant-in-area parts of Scotland that aren’t part of the island of Great Britain get narky if the official name implies they don’t count.
Or perhaps they used to be ‘The British Lions’ until Partition, tried ‘The British Isles Lions’ for a bit (the tours are around every 4 years), then went to the current usage?

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 20:33:53 +0000

Umm, doesn’t IE (as opposed to “Ireland”) refer specifically to the Republic of Ireland? If so, I don’t see the double counting, though UK+IE implies a different partition than the official one.

And if Ireland accounts for the whole island, why aren’t they just the “British and Irish Lions”. Is the Isle of Man counted specially?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 13:44:37 +0000

Errol is right; Northern Ireland is double-counted in “UK + IE” as referring to the Lions.

By: Errol

Errol — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 06:59:42 +0000

I’m afraid you’ll have to fix it again – the Irish rugby team represents all of the island, they are the ‘British Isles and Ireland Lions’.

There was more confusion when they played the Wellington rugby team – called the Lions!

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 04:07:48 +0000

Fixed, Chris, though I don’t know whether I should apologise to Irish readers for lumping them in with the UK (a la SNCF) or claim their thanks for omitting their role in this debacle.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 14:26:04 +0000

Good one John, but you mustn’t say “NZ beat UK 48-18” … Should be UK+Ireland.