History has given us some odd territorial boundaries, strange exclaves, and a whole lot of border conflict, often racialised conflict. 

 

In a wide-ranging episode recorded before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we talk about the opera house in two countries that allowed families to get around Trump's travel ban, the centuries of history that led to the Irish border, the current border situation in Northern Ireland, how the US and the EU incentivize their neighbours to prevent migrants getting close to their own borders, the neglect of duty to migrants and refugees, how to talk about borders during a pandemic, and a digression on the qualities of the himbo. 

 

Plus, medical TV viewing for troubled times.  

 

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Vox documentaries on borders 

 

Melilla: Europe's dirty secret - Nick Davies in The Guardian (2010) 

 

Hundreds of child migrants crammed into warehouses in Ceuta - Ashifa Kassam in The Guardian (2021) 

 

Drugs being smuggled into Ireland ‘inside horses and donkeys’, policing meeting hears - Conor Lally for The Irish Times (2021)  

 

HSBC "Love knows no bounds" poster

 

 

WHO advice for international traffic in relation to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) 

 

Berlin 1961: The Record Corrected - Raymond L. Garthoff (1991)