In August 1990 a retired French nuclear physicist called André Gardes armed himself with a semi‑automatic and launched a one-man invasion of Sark. When he arrived on the island he put up a pair of posters warning the residents that he was going to take over at noon the next day. And he would have, if a local constable hadn’t disarmed him by asking if he could hold his gun for a minute. Gardes removed the magazine, handed it over, and the policeman punched him on the nose. The invasion was over. Gardes actually tried again a year later. This time the ferryman recognised him and refused to sell him a ticket.
I was thinking about all this on Saturday morning, while I was eavesdropping on another of history’s great failed expeditions, this one a futile sally north by the two men sitting behind me on the 8.53am from London to Edinburgh. Like me, and almost everyone else on the train, they were on their way to watch the game at Murrayfield. They were on a corporate jolly. They didn’t seem to know too much more about who was playing than what they’d read in the morning’s papers, but they were bubbling with excitement about their weekend away anyway. Until, as the train pulled into the first stop, the public address told them what was ahead.
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