#boaty mcboatface

The RSS Sir David Attenborough in Greenwich 29.10.21

Apparently, some farmer accidentally moved the French-Belgian border by relocating a big stone that often blocked his path. And now Belgium has to call in a specialist in historical boundaries.

I can imagine this farmer getting in trouble, intercepted along his path by Belgian police. Then he says, “well watch this” and picks up the big stone as everyone watches, moving it to the other side of his path and just going, “bye.”

Then, as the police whisper about what to do quieter than the audience can hear, some big guy enters the frame, picks up the stone, yells, “follow me!,” and runs into what used to be France. So it is a mad and wild chase scene in which Belgian police try to put the border in front of this farmer so they can catch him.

In a seamless location cut, they end up sprinting through Paris. The farmer is just barely ahead, while this huge guy is still chasing him with the French border. Meanwhile, various French bystanders get punched by the Belgian police who now scream, “you are under Belgian rule by authority of that rock.” Then they all scramble to run the other way, as the big guy chases the farmer back through the street. The bystanders are randomly in either France or Belgium at any second, so they just leave.

The Belgian police throw the stone on a truck and chase the farmer down a tunnel. But then the French army blocks their path. Soldiers arrest the driver, but then just dramatically sit on the hood, because the back half of the truck is still in Belgium. Two bored people play chess on top of the stone, but mostly just line up their pieces along each side of the boundary.

Then, a ladder swings down, and the Belgians take the stone into a helicopter. Flying over the city, nobody can catch them. French authorities point and shout, “somebody catch the border!” Belgian police patiently wait, then arrest them for treason once the stone flies past.

Eventually, they land next to Spain, who caught the farmer at their own border. One of the Belgians hollers, “We got France!” All these new Belgians are like, “can they do that?” Everyone starts crying as they dump out their wine and cheese to make room for waffles. Then Macron, the French president, shows up and is all, “Did you just erase my country on the authority of a rock?,” Macron asks calmly. And the Belgians are like, “It sounds weird when you say it like that, but yes; the rock let us do it.” So Macron slips a hand into his pocket and pulls out a little stone with eyes and a mouth on it and says, “Well Stoney McStoneface says that is dumb, so we are not gonna do that.”

One of the Belgians tries to draw on the border stone, but someone takes the marker because you can not Sharpie away international borders. Everyone agrees Macron has the better rock, and they all try to go home, but the French army arrests all the Belgians for actually invading their country. The Belgians are like, “fair,” and the farmer slips away when nobody is looking.

…

I think I might have accidentally written a Monty Python sketch.