turned pirate radio operator
After screening a few episodes of early Fox teen drama “21 Jump Street,” I was inspired the other night to watch another text that featured Johnny Depp as an undercover cop. Donnie Brasco was as good as I remembered it, and I wondered, “What else has this Mike Newell guy done?” A check of IMDB revealed how little I pay attention to film, but it also revealed a really interesting movie in pre-production. Newell is on board to direct “Sealand,” which is a biopic about Roy Bates, who squatted an anti-aircraft platform in the English Channel and declared himself the prince of the independent nation of Sealand. I would love to see a silver-screen treatment of this bizarre story.
Geeks may remember Sealand’s efforts in the early part of this century to create an off-shore data haven. The company HavenCo set up shop on the rusting hulk of Sealand to serve data that would not be regulated by governments other than Sealand, presumably offering an opportunity for gambling sites and purveyors of adult content. Wired magazine had a nice feature on the genesis of HavenCo. Eventually HavenCo shut down for a variety of business and logistical reasons, not to mention the fact it was kind of a goofy idea to begin with. Regardless, it’s worth mentioning that HavenCo wasn’t Sealand’s first foray into pushing the envelope of media content. It also operated a pirate radio station before Britain liberalized it’s broadcasting laws and legal stations played rock music. I don’t know what slices of Sealand’s history the movie will portray, but it should make for a fascinating story.
2 Comments
I’ve been fascinated by Sealand since I first ran across it a few years back while doing a search on Micronations. The fact that Sealand had its own physical space, ostensibly in international waters and clearly separate from the local mainland, really made it distinct from other “Micronations,” most of which really just proclaim the sovereignty of the “king’s” house in downtown Dallas or wherever and leave it at that. I was dismayed a few weeks back to read that Sealand was possibly to be no more due to a massive fire. I’m not positive what the rules are, but it seems that if a sovereign nation becomes completely empty of its citizens, it likely can no longer be considered sovereign. –Erich
Yeah, I saw that about the fire. I guess I should have mentioned that in my post. I think the sovereignity of Sealand was always pretty dubious – the crown just tolerated Sealand with bemusement. Of course, they could have sent in a bunch of commandos and reclaimed the rusting hulk.