Mildly Interesting

This is a great article on the insanity of Sark's governmental system. It goes into the attempts of the Barclay brothers (UK media barons) to gain control of the island in the 2000s and their eventual failure:

The quirkiest of the British Isles is a self-governing jurisdiction between Guernsey and France just over three miles long and less than two miles wide. Sark has its own parliament, its own taxes and its own traffic laws (permitting only tractors, bikes and horse-drawn vehicles). Its central, fertile plateau is protected by cliffs on almost all sides that rise to over three hundred feet. There are no natural harbours. In 1862, the lords of the Admiralty of the world’s greatest naval power came to inspect its defences but sailed away, finding nowhere suitable to disembark. Whenever strong easterlies made it impossible to land at Creux beach, travellers had to anchor at Havre Gosselin instead, which meant mounting a precarious fifty-step ladder straight up the rocks: a proper jetty was built only in 1912. Walkers could access one of the best beaches, at Port es Saies, by means of a rope hanging over the cliff.