Tag Archives: Faroe Islands

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Barbaric tradition that needs stopping

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I’m against hunting in principle, so I couldn’t understand why foreigners painted all Maltese people with the same brush when it comes to bird hunting. We don’t all hunt. But then I understood. After watching the popular TV programme Le Iene, I felt anger and disgust for all the people on the Faroe Islands for very similar reasons.

I’m not sure if they are all in favour, but that’s pretty much irrelevant. The islanders practice a sick, barbaric tradition called Grindadráp, which sees hundred, no thousands of whales killed senselessly every summer.

I say senselessly because they do not eat the whale meat, or have any use for any part of the dead whales they are apparently thrown back to sea. It is purely a tradition which these people see fit to continue practising (wonder where I heard that before).

I can’t see why the people on the Faroe Islands (or Maltese hunters for the matter) can’t follow the example of their Danish cousins and take on the traditional Nøgenløbet Roskilde (Roskilde Naked Run) or their Finnish neighbour’s Wife Carrying Competition. Why is it that some people have to kill something to feel good?

This is something that should be stopped – as should hunting in Malta, bullfighting in Spain, dog-fighting and cock-fighting, and any other barbaric practice that results in the useless death of an animal.

Sign the petition to End the Faroe Islands’ Whale Slaughter

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A competition we can win

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Watching England take apart San Marino in the Euro 2016 qualifier was not fun, so much so that I switched to the Swiss play against Slovenia. The Swiss played better, but unfortunately lost. At least the game was fun to watch.

Despite supporting England, it was painful to see how easy it was to win the ball (I only watched the second half). If they had played in the same way against a top team, the outcome would have been very different from the 5-0 score line against San Marino.

Admittedly, small teams have been getting better recently, but they are still miles away from anything that can be considered decent, even because many play semi-professional football and hold regular jobs. Whenever one of the small teams manages a win, or even a draw, it makes the headlines. It’s like arbitrarily getting a team from the bottom division and making them play top flight football – the outcome is obvious.

The recent entry of Gibraltar in the footballing fray has made the situation worse – Poland demolished them 7-0, and I guess their for/against tally won’t be pleasant reading for the Rock at the end of this campaign.

So here’s what I think should be done; get all the minnows – San Marino, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, Andorra and yes, Malta (do you remember the 1-12 result against Spain? And we also lost to Gibraltar in a friendly and lost 3-0 at home to Norway yesterday) – and place them in a pre-qualification group. The winner will then be allowed to compete in the actual qualifying games for big competitions.

In this way, we avoid the silly score lines for starters. Secondly, these nations will (hopefully) put more money into the game in a bid to get into the qualifying stages. Thirdly, people from these nations – me included – will watch their nation play in a competition they CAN actually win. Imagine that…