Top of the morning to you. Whether you’re in the United Kingdom, or Northern Ireland, or the rest of the world for that matter, we hope your weeks have started off well and that your weekends were filled with some good Covid-safe craic.
What’s that you say? Northern Ireland is . . . a part of the UK?! And that’s kind of what all the fuss over the now-defunct “ Irish backstop ” was about and the new “ Northern Ireland protocol ” is about in the Brexit wranglings?
OK well someone needs to tell this to Amazon.
Over the weekend, the company caused * much hilarity * on the internet when its customer support account responded on Twitter to a user named Chris Jones who was trying to stream the Rugby Autumn Nations Cup from Northern Ireland:
Amazon didn’t back down after Jones pointed out that Northern Ireland is in fact a part of the UK:
To be fair to Amazon, it is all a bit confusing (even for those of us of Irish heritage). Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, but it’s not a part of Great Britain. It is, however, part of “Team GB” for the Olympics. Oh and whereas England, Scotland and Wales are all called “countries” as well as being a part of the “country” of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland is not called a country , and is instead called a statelet, or province, or region, because unlike the other three, it has never been a sovereign country in its own right. So perhaps a certain amount of confusion is forgivable here? (OK look it’s a Monday morning — we haven’t built up the energy for scathing attacks yet and frankly all of us are feeling confused about a lot of things in 2020.)
Amazon did later apologise for the embarrassment. Though in a separate Twitter conversation with a customer about the same rugby cup, they also appeared to feel the need to apologise for the three decades of violent sectarian conflict in the region:
It all reminded us a bit of this infamous moment from Joe Kernan on CNBC’s Squawk Box:
“I’d use the pound.” Cool good luck pal.
Despite Amazon’s really quite significant political declaration that the island of Ireland is now united, Twitter didn’t feel the need to flag the tweet as any kind misinformation unlike what they’ve been doing with a certain other user. If you ask us iT’S a cOnSPiRaCy.
Anyway, Free Derry ! Sorry no — Free Delivery!
Related links: CNBC clash of the titans: Kernen vs Sorkin — FT Alphaville Chancellor's blockchain idea is a desperate scrape of the Brexit barrel — FT Alphaville