Despite it being on the news every day in TLCB’s home nation for three years, this website has so far managed to avoid taking about Brexit. We’ll segway neatly to it today though, because a) something might actually happen this month (but probably not) and b) this lovely digital French fishing vessel by Flickr’s Edouard Clo provides a neat Brexit metaphor.

OK, first the elephant in the room – yes this is a digital ‘build’ (boo), but it’s also so well rendered that it’s really hard to tell – only an error/glitch in the image below (see if you can spot it!) gives the game away.

The detail is astonishing though, particularly as this is mini-figure scale, with a brilliant hull, a beautifully recreated deck, plentiful equipment, and some French fisherman stationed aboard ready to throw rocks at the English. And on to the segway…

You see one of the reasons the English narrowly voted for Brexit was the EU allows anyone from within it to bid for fishing rights, which means there are parts of the UK where fisherman are not allowed to fish in their own waters because the quota has been given to boats from another country, despite generations of fishing families living and working off those waters for centuries.

However this rule works both ways, with English boats plundering the French coasts of their precious scallops all year, when the French are only allowed to fish for them during certain months. This has caused some annoyance in France to put it mildly.

This one industry sums up both the greatness and folly of the EU; Everyone is in one big happy family, where everyone has access to everything. Except for when people aren’t really happy at all because generations of traditions and livelihoods have been sacrificed for a common objective. And that leads to people sometimes throwing rocks at each other.

Still, the UK and France have a long and noble tradition of antagonising each other so all we need now is for someone to build a mini-figure scale English scallop trawler to enable a fair representation of both sides. Until then grab some rocks and set sail to intercept the thieving English pig-dogs!