Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd (43 page)

E
MARE LIBERTAS

On September 2, 1967, a former British Army major by the name of Paddy Roy Bates moved his family six miles off the coast of southwest England—onto a concrete and steel platform on the North Sea—and declared their new home to be “the country of Sealand.” He then crowned himself H.R.H. Prince Roy of Sealand, created the country’s own postage stamps, passports and currency—the Sealand dollar—and even gave it a national motto,
E Mare Libertas
, or “From the Sea, Freedom.”

Roy Bates was once the youngest major in the British army, fighting with the Royal Fusiliers in North Africa and Italy during World War II. When he returned home to Essex, England, he made a fortune owning factories, a fishing fleet, and (his own words) “a few other businesses.” One of those other businesses: a “pirate” commercial radio station called Radio Essex. At the time (1965), all the radio airwaves in the British Isles were controlled by the state-owned British Broadcasting Corporation, and “pirate” radio was immensely popular. Bates set up his 24-hour radio station on Fort Knock John, a deserted World War II sea fort in the Thames River estuary. But since Fort Knock John was within England’s three-mile territorial limit, the British government quickly shut it down and fined Bates for operating a radio station without a license.

Not to be defeated, Bates moved his operation six miles offshore (and outside U.K. territorial waters) to Roughs Tower, an old anti-aircraft platform—abandoned since the end of World War II—that sat on two 60-foot-tall concrete pylons off the southeast coast of England. With the addition of electrical generators,
mobile phones, some comfy furniture, and a team of professional security guards, the royal family—Prince Roy, his wife (Princess) Joan, and son (Prince Regent) Michael—declared it their own nation and made themselves at home in the world’s smallest principality.

Prince Roy soon discovered that once you lay claim to an abandoned outpost and call it a country, you risk opposition from real-life governments, as well as pirates who want to lay claim to your claim. The Royal Navy tried to evict Bates from Sealand—but abandoned the attempt when they were met with warning shots fired from the tower. Following the incident, the British government brought legal action against the Bateses—but the case was dropped in 1968 when the courts ruled that the government had no jurisdiction outside British territorial waters. After that, the British authorities contented themselves with making life for the Bateses miserable during customs inspections whenever they set foot on the British mainland. But the next invasion came from an unexpected quarter.

Every prince needs a cabinet of ministers to help run his country, so Bates appointed one Professor Alexander G. Achenbach, a German national and Sealand resident, as Prime Minister. Then, in August 1978, while Prince Roy and Princess Joan were away, Achenbach staged a palace coup. Joined by a number of Dutch citizens, Achenbach captured the Bateses’ son Michael, held him hostage, and declared himself the new Prince of Sealand.

Bates wasn’t about to take that without a fight. After convincing his former P.M. to release his son several days later, Bates assembled a few associates—his “army”—to retake the platform. In a daring helicopter assault, he and his men stormed the fort and captured Achenbach and his gang—and held them as prisoners of war. Bates released the prisoners when “the conflict” ended (he said it was the right thing to do, according to the Geneva Conventions). But he kept one hostage: a German lawyer named Gernot Pütz. The fact that Pütz held a Sealand passport, Bates said, made him guilty of treason, and he wouldn’t be freed until he paid
an £18,000 fine. The move actually strengthened Bates’s position in the world of nations, because when the German government petitioned the British for Pütz’s release, the Brits would have nothing to do with it, citing the 1968 ruling in which Sealand was declared outside of British jurisdiction. The Germans finally sent an envoy to Roughs Tower. After several weeks Bates released Pütz, saying that the visit amounted to a formal recognition of Sealand by Germany. (German officials disagreed.)

Roy of Sealand continued to rule his strange little country for the next 30 years, thwarting several takeover attempts by makeshift “armies” and making the news numerous times in humorous and not-so-humorous ways. The worst came in 1997, through the unlikely route of the murder of fashion icon Gianni Versace and the suicide of his killer, Andrew Cunanan. The two were found on a Miami houseboat, which investigators found was registered to a German businessman…who held a Sealand passport and diplomatic license plates. Bates didn’t understand how that was possible; he had given away a few hundred passports to friends over the years, but the German wasn’t one of them. (And he’d
never
made any “diplomatic license plates.”) As he would soon find out, the culprit was Achenbach.

Bates’s old nemesis had returned to Germany in 1978, and had then set up a Sealand “government in exile,” declaring himself “Chairman of the Privy Council.” He had retired from the organization in 1989, but it continued without him, and the Versace investigation revealed that by 1997 Achenbach’s organization had sold an estimated 150,000 fake Sealand passports at $1,000 each. Then the passports had been used by drug smugglers, identity-fraud criminals—and worse. One group from Spain had issued Sealand Army uniforms and attempted to buy 50 tanks and 10 fighter jets, in order to resell them to Sudan for $50 million. The Bateses were found to have no link to the crooks, and they expressed their dismay at finding that their “country” had been so misused. “They’re stealing our name, and they’re stealing from other people,” Joan Bates said. “How disgusting can you get?”

In 1999 Bates passed the rule of Sealand to his son Michael. In 2000 they made international news again, this time with the announcement that the site would become a “datahaven”—basically a pirate internet business. With Roy’s blessing, Prince Regent Michael and a few associates created HavenCo, a secure computer power and internet data storage space (eerily reminiscent of the fictional haven created by novelist Neal Stephenson in his bestseller
Cryptonomicon
). The company got publicity all over the world and even attracted some high-profile customers (the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan government-in-exile Web site was hosted by HavenCo). But, although it still exists, the company never really took off.

Today Prince Roy and Princess Joan live in England; Prince Regent Michael, who now runs Sealand, also lives on land. In June 2006, Sealand suffered a disastrous fire; the one person aboard the platform at the time was rescued by a Royal Air Force helicopter. But the Royal family didn’t let this latest obstacle stop them. With a projected cost of fire repairs and renovations expected to top $1 million, the Web site
Sealandgov.org
gives regular and cheerful updates about the rebuilding progress. And a special bonus that might help the Bateses’ financial fortunes: film director Mike Newell (
Four Weddings and a Funeral
and
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
), is slated to direct a film, due out in 2008, about Roy and Joan Bates—entitled
Sealand
.

*       *       *

Lauri Venøy, a Norwegian businessman, believes he has found the renewable energy source of the future: human fat. His idea is to use the fatty by-products left over from liposuction operations and convert them into biodiesel fuel. Where does Venøy intend to farm the fat from? The United States, where approximately 60% of the populace is overweight. He’s made a deal with Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida, to obtain all of its extracted fat, estimated at 3,000 gallons per week. “Maybe we should urge people to eat more so we can create more raw material for fuel,” Venøy said.

Organ transplants are a miracle of science and an incredible act of human kinship: A part of one person can help another person live or live better. But it’s not just hearts and livers anymore—it seems like doctors can transplant nearly
anything
these days.

B
ODY PART:
Face

RECIPIENT:
Isabelle Dinoire

STORY:
In May 2005, 38-year-old Dinoire of Valenciennes, France, was depressed and took a large dose of sleeping pills. Her dog tried to wake her up, but couldn’t, and became more and more alarmed. In its zeal to rouse Dinoire, the dog inadvertently mauled her, destroying her nose, lips, and chin. Dinoire recovered, but she could barely eat and couldn’t speak at all. Two surgeons from Amiens, France, took an interest in the case and proposed a triangular skin graft. The tissues, muscles, arteries, and veins would be taken from the face of a brain-dead donor and transplanted onto Dinoire. The skin had to come from a living donor because live tissue ensured proper blood flow. Skin from somewhere else on Dinoire’s body would be too different in color and texture. The five-hour procedure took place in November 2005, and it worked. Dinoire’s appearance isn’t exactly what it used to be—it’s more of a hybrid between her old face and the donor’s face. (Her nose is narrower and her mouth is fuller.) She still can’t move her lips very well, but she’s able to speak, eat, and even smoke again. (After all, she’s French.)

BODY PART:
Head

RECIPIENT:
Some monkeys

STORY:
On March 4, 1970, a team of scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, led by Dr. Robert J. White, successfully attached the head of one rhesus monkey to the body of another rhesus monkey. First, White cooled the brain to the point where all neural activity stopped. It would still be chemically “alive” if the volume of blood was kept at a normal level. This was
achieved by carefully cauterizing all the arteries and veins in the head. Then the old head—brain and skull intact—was grafted onto the new body…and it was still alive. After the monkey recovered from the anesthesia, it tried to bite one of the researchers, but it could eat, hear, smell, and follow things with its eyes, meaning all nerves were intact with the brain. It lived for about four hours. Thirty-one years later, White tried the experiment again and this time was able to get the new body breathing on its own, controlled by the transplanted brain, allowing the monkey to live for eight days. Neither the 1970 nor 2001 experiment resulted in the attachment of the spinal cord, so neither monkey could voluntarily control the action of their new bodies. White is now retired, but has a standing offer to perform the procedure on a human being. (So far, no takers.)

BODY PART:
Hand

RECIPIENT:
Matthew Scott

STORY:
In 1985, 24-year-old Scott, a paramedic from New Jersey, severely damaged his left hand from a blast by an M80 firecracker. It had to be amputated and Scott was fitted with a prosthetic hand. In 1998, Scott decided he wanted a real hand. Hand transplants weren’t unheard of—the procedure had been attempted before—but it had never been successful in the long term. That’s because it’s one of the most complicated surgeries conceivable: the hand contains 27 bones, 28 muscles, three nerves, two arteries, tendons, veins, soft tissue, and skin. To get the new hand to perform normally would be more akin to performing several dozen micro-surgeries. The surgery was performed in 1999 at the Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky, by University of Louisville surgeons Warren Breidenbach and Tsu-Min Tsai. Using a hand from a 58-year-old male cadaver, it took a surgical team of 17 people nearly 15 hours to attach the new hand (heart transplants take about seven). After the surgery, Dr. Breidenbach told the media “it could be at least a year if we know if it’s a good functioning hand. We hope for a good grip and some sensation of hot and cold.” Amazingly, Scott could move his new fingers just a week later. In April 2000, he threw out the first pitch at a Philadelphia Phillies game. And amazingly, after just one year Scott could sense temperature, pressure, and pain…and could use his new hand to write, turn pages, and tie his shoelaces.

Basically, all video games are pretty weird. After all, who would have thought a multibillion-dollar industry could be built on the backs of an Italian plumber and a yellow circle that eats white pills? These get our award for weirdest of the weird.

•
Wild Woody
(1995) A magic totem pole brings to life a pencil that belongs to an treasure-hunting archaeologist. In order to save the world, the pencil must recover artifacts from around the globe.

•
Pesterminator: The Western Exterminator
(1990) The object of the game is to kill termites. The player assumes the identity of Kernel Kleanup, the exterminator mascot of a tiny, real-life pest control company called Western Exterminators.

•
Captain Novolin
(1992) Captain Novolin is a diabetic superhero (named after a brand of insulin). Object of the game: Novolin must defeat alien invaders who have turned themselves into dangerous sugary snacks. Bonus: Extra points are awarded for correctly answering trivia questions about diabetes.