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Somehow, Saturday exceeded even the loftiest expectations, delivering one of the most exciting days in college football history.

Try picking the best game.

Was it Ohio State over Indiana? The defending national champions nearly extended their winning streak to 23 games, but a possible game-winning touchdown pass came down inches out of bounds.

How about unranked Auburn, a 20-point underdog, beating No. 1 Georgia on a field goal as time expired?

In Provo, Utah, No. 8 BYU beat No. 2 Notre Dame in a game that was decided on the final play. But should there have been another second on the clock? Should BYU have been called for pass interference on the final play?

No. 3 Miami trailed Florida State in the third quarter and overtime, before winning in double overtime. Florida State had one miracle play wiped away by a penalty and another thwarted by an interception that needed a replay review to end the game.

Fans stormed the field at Tennessee after the No. 14 Vols beat No. 6 Alabama. No. 7 Texas lost to unranked Florida in Austin, after which Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian expressed his frustration with the offense, which sputtered behind a poor performance from quarterback Arch Manning.

There are no wrong answers here.

It was a historic day in college football. According to ESPN Research, it was the first time since 1936, when the AP poll began, that five of the top-seven teams lost on a single day. Georgia also became a footnote in history by joining Texas to become the first No. 1-ranked teams to lose on the last play of the game in consecutive weeks.

It all came amid a larger debate about how postseason expansion will impact the regular season.

In the four-team playoff era, any of these losses from Saturday's big games might have been disqualifying. In the current 12-team playoff era, the impact isn't quite as severe, but they still reframe how the second half of the year will look. Also, a week like this won't be as consequential for the best teams in the sport in the future.

Whether that's good or bad is a matter of personal taste.

This year, it puts Texas and Alabama -- both of which have two losses -- on the brink of playoff elimination. Alabama got in last year with three losses, and Texas was left out at 9-3.

Georgia, Indiana and Notre Dame still have some margin for error, but will also play the rest of the season knowing another loss could knock them out. Last year, BYU and Notre Dame got left out as two-loss teams, along with Vanderbilt and Utah.

In a 24-team playoff, though, the calculus changes dramatically. A loss that once threatened to derail a national championship pursuit could instead become little more than a setback. Coaches would have time to diagnose problems, make adjustments and position their teams to peak in the postseason, rather than needing to sustain something close to perfection just to get there.

The idea that the regular season will matter less with a larger playoff field has never really stood up to scrutiny. A few games for teams near the top might not be as impactful, but a larger playoff field also means more teams will be playing games with playoff ramifications later into the season. Games that previously wouldn't have mattered will have real stakes.

But there is also something disingenuous about the whole exercise because it ignores a basic truth: Football is fun. This country tunes in by the millions to watch NFL preseason games and bowl games between mediocre teams with depleted rosters.

It will never be a hard sell to watch college football because days such as Saturday will always be possible.

Jump to:
Indiana's win streak ends
SEC parity
Michigan benches Underwood
Closing bell

Pour one out for Indiana's win streak

For a brief moment, it looked as if Indiana had done it again.

Thousands of people inside Indiana's Memorial Stadium erupted when they saw Nick Marsh haul in what appeared to be an iconic, winning touchdown pass against Ohio State. But Marsh's reaction told a different story. He knew immediately his foot came down out of bounds, effectively ending the Hoosiers' 22-game winning streak that included a national championship.

The end of the streak offers an obvious chance to reflect. It was a heartbreaking loss, but Hoosiers fans can still probably appreciate that coming within inches of beating Ohio State, the preseason No. 1, now qualifies as a major disappointment. Until Curt Cignetti arrived, a performance like that might have even been celebrated with optimism.

It's not surprising anymore, but it can still be a bit surreal, at times, to see Indiana on this stage.

Considering where it came from, Indiana's winning streak is one of the most impressive in decades.

Parity in the SEC

Six SEC games Saturday featured at least one ranked team. In four of those games, the lower-ranked team won. It left the conference without a clear favorite or an undefeated team.

The biggest takeaway? The SEC doesn't have a great team right now, not by its own standards.

Two weeks ago, Texas and Alabama were very much considered national title contenders. Now, with both teams dropping their past two games, a third loss -- at least -- for each seems almost inevitable.

Auburn stuns No. 1 Georgia 27-24 in Athens

Even after losing to unranked Auburn at home, Georgia still feels like the favorite. But its next three games will be revealing: Florida, at Ole Miss, Missouri. The Bulldogs are one of four teams with one conference loss, along with Kentucky, Tennessee and Ole Miss.

The depth and parity make the SEC tough to evaluate. With 16 teams and so many circular results, trying to establish an SEC hierarchy is complicated. Every impressive performance seems to be followed by a counterexample.

That pattern puts Ole Miss and Tennessee on notice.

Who has it worse, Michigan or Penn State?

Coming into the weekend, Penn State-Michigan might as well have been the Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man meme: Two bluebloods with new coaches, falling well short of expectations and trending heavily in the wrong direction.

Michigan's 21-18 win against Penn State ended a two-game skid, but not before quarterback Bryce Underwood was benched in favor of Tommy Carr. This was bound to happen. All the money Underwood received to play for Michigan is a sunk cost. Kyle Whittingham couldn't let him continue to go out there and expect different results. As much as everyone at Michigan wanted -- and still wants -- Underwood to succeed, the offense had been too bad not to give Carr a chance.

And when Carr came on in the third quarter after a scoreless first half, the offense improved. Bryson Kuzdzal ran for a 43-yard touchdown, Carr guided the Wolverines on an 11-play, 74-yard touchdown drive and later rushed for a 12-yard score.

Whittingham admitted that Carr gave the Wolverines the spark they were hoping he would provide, but stopped short of naming him the starter for next week's game against Indiana. With the writing on the wall, it would be shocking if Carr didn't get the nod.

Carr didn't fill the stat sheet: He completed just 5 of 7 passes for 47 yards. But after Underwood was 5-of-11 for 43 yards and two interceptions, it was clear who gave Michigan the best chance to win.

A win next week against Indiana would be unlikely, but this season has had a way of shattering those sorts of predictions.

Penn State is in worse shape. The facade that was built with wins against Marshall, Temple and Buffalo to start the season has been shattered. The Nittany Lions got rid of a coach who took them to the College Football Playoff semifinal two seasons ago. Now, they are 0-4 in the Big Ten, and any sense of optimism that arrived with new coach Matt Campbell is gone.

The closing bell

Buy: Texas Tech

The Red Raiders had been an anomaly over their first five games: An undefeated team that had still managed to underwhelm. That changed against Arizona State, as Tech routed the Sun Devils 53-25. Red Raiders quarterback Will Hammond was outstanding, and J'Koby Williams ran for 165 yards and two touchdowns on just 11 carries.

Sell: Arizona State

Two seasons removed from the No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff, ASU has now lost consecutive Big 12 games by more than five touchdowns.

Buy: Ole Miss

Trinidad Chambliss and the Rebels delivered perhaps the most complete performance of the day, beating No. 13 Missouri 31-3. Chambliss threw for 241 yards and three touchdown passes in a game that was well in control by halftime.

Sell: Mississippi State

The Bulldogs played well enough over the first four games of the season to allow for the possibility that they could be a playoff contender. That is no longer the case. It became clear at LSU that there is still a wide gulf in talent between Mississippi State and the big boys in the SEC. Even if Kamario Taylor had played, the Bulldogs' 31-0 loss to LSU was too lopsided for his presence to have mattered meaningfully.

Hold: Rutgers

Rutgers' loss to UMass opened the possibility it could go winless -- at least against FBS teams. That watch is over. The Scarlet Knights picked up a 37-30 win against Maryland, preventing the worst-case scenario for the season.

Buy: Western Michigan

The Broncos (5-2, 3-0 MAC) continue to look like the class of MAC, with an intriguing game coming up next week against Toledo (5-2, 2-1). Ohio is the only other unbeaten team in conference play, but the teams won't play in the regular season.

Sell: Penn's game management

Ivy League football might not feature the best athletes, but most people assume that situational decision-making shouldn't be an issue in the conference. Then, a scenario like what happened Friday night calls into question that line of thinking. Trailing 28-27, Penn completed a 16-yard pass to get the ball to the Columbia 35-yard line with 10 seconds left. The obvious follow-up is to spike the ball, then trot out the kicker to attempt a difficult game winner. Instead, Penn rushed out the kicking unit, and the attempt fell short. It's possible that would have been the result regardless, but it was a poorly managed ending.

Columbia hangs on to win after Penn's last-second FG falls short

Buy: Air Force

After an early loss to FBS newcomer North Dakota State, it would have been easy to write off the Falcons as a contender in the Mountain West. Four straight wins later, including a 41-31 win against UNLV -- the Rebels' first loss in Mountain West play -- Air Force looks like a conference contender.

Sell: Duke

After starting 4-0, Duke was looking at a manageable schedule that suggested a 9-0 start might be possible heading into its game vs. Miami. In hindsight, it was a silly suggestion. After losing to lowly Georgia Tech last week, it didn't get better this week with a 24-20 loss to North Carolina. And now the Blue Devils -- the defending conference champs -- are just another mediocre ACC team.

Buy: Mickey Hart + the Cal band

From an iconic career as a drummer with the Grateful Dead to helping the Cal band prepare to honor the Dead in Berkeley, what a long, strange trip it has been for Mickey Hart.

Drummin' to the beat in Bear Territory 🥁 @mickeyhart joined the @CalBand to jam before tomorrow night's Grateful Bears game! https://t.co/iKpY0CKQgu

— Cal Athletics (@CalAthletics) October 16, 2026

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His itinerary sparked a political storm after the US ambassador to India said Washington expected Jaishankar to travel to meet Rubio, prompting opposition leaders to accuse the government of allowing India’s top diplomat to be “summoned” on home soil.

The spat comes as relations between the two countries are strained over trade, tariffs and India’s purchases of Russian oil.

So why is Rubio avoiding New Delhi, and why has it caused such upset? Here’s what you need to know:

What is Rubio doing in India?

He plans to discuss trade, energy and investment.

Rubio is arriving on Sunday from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where he has been meeting with five Central Asian states at the C5+1 summit.

In India, he is due to meet senior officials to discuss the US-India strategic partnership and energy cooperation and hold talks with business leaders, the State Department said.

Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal appeared to confirm the agenda, stating on Friday that the Mumbai talks would cover energy, trade and investment, defence, and critical and emerging technologies.

In Jamnagar, Rubio is to visit the world’s largest single-site refinery, operated by billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, and attend a reception hosted by the Ambani family, according to The Hindu newspaper.

Why isn’t Rubio going to New Delhi?

No official reason has been given.

Rubio was in the Indian capital in May for a meeting of foreign ministers of countries in the Quad, a group consisting of the US, India, Japan and Australia.

The State Department has framed his upcoming trip around energy and investment, and the second stop on Rubio’s India visit, Jamnagar, is one of the world’s most important energy hubs.

The visit also comes as fuel prices bite in the US before next month’s midterm elections.

Reliance, an energy, retail and telecommunications conglomerate, also sits at the centre of Washington’s wider oil diplomacy.

Business Standard, an Indian financial daily, said the Jamnagar stop was significant because Reliance is the biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude oil besides the US at a time when Washington has been urging India to buy more.

Since US forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January and took essential control of the country’s oil industry, the US government has marketed Venezuelan oil to buyers abroad.

Reliance is also investing in a new refinery in Texas, the first to be built in the US in 50 years, which Trump hailed as a $300bn deal when he announced it in March, Business Standard reported.

What did the US ambassador say, and why has it caused upset?

Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi on Thursday, US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor said Rubio would meet Indian government officials in Mumbai, and Washington “expected” Jaishankar and others from New Delhi to travel there to see him.

Earlier in the week, however, Jaiswal had not confirmed the trip or explained why Rubio was skipping New Delhi, telling reporters the Indian government would announce it “at the appropriate time”, The Hindu newspaper reported.

Jairam Ramesh, a general secretary of the opposition Indian National Congress party, wrote on X that the ambassador’s statement was “quite extraordinary”.

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition in parliament’s lower house, also took to X to comment, writing on Friday that Rubio had “summoned his employee to Mumbai”.

Congress MP Pawan Khera went further.

“A foreign government summoning India’s External Affairs Minister on Indian soil is a new low, even by the Modi Government’s standards,” he wrote on X, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Why are US-India relations strained?

Mainly because of Trump’s tariffs and Russian oil.

In August last year after a round of trade talks broke down, the US hit most Indian goods with a 50 percent tariff. Under a framework the two sides agreed in February, that rate fell to 18 percent, however.

Since then, negotiations have stalled.

This month, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the talks had “plateaued”, according to The Hindu.

On Thursday, Trade Minister Piyush Goyal said the “first tranche” of a deal was in its final stages but India would not sign until its exporters had an edge over rivals such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia, according to the Reuters news agency.

Other points of friction have emerged.

Last week, US Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling announced that his department was suspending eight companies – including the Indian IT giants Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and HCL – from a labour certification scheme that is a key step for employers seeking green cards for their foreign staff.

Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote this week that Indian public opinion of the US has hit a record low, citing US engagement with Pakistan and the US-Israel war on Iran, which he said had pushed India back towards Russian oil.

Despite that, he argued, defence and technology cooperation has quietly deepened, and bilateral trade grew by almost 12 percent in 2025 to nearly $240bn.

In his view, “perceptions of the political relationship have deteriorated faster than its strategic foundations.”

A sanctions law had threatened to make matters worse.

Last month, Trump signed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which could impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on goods from the five largest importers of Russian oil or gas.

India, one of the world’s biggest buyers of Russian oil, had warned Washington that new tariffs could hurt bilateral ties. Trump signed an executive order seeking to waive the sanctions on Friday as he tries to ease high oil prices before the November 3 US elections. %!s()

“I’m saddened to share that there have been both fatalities and injuries as a result of an incident on the base,” Minister of National Defence David McGuinty said on Saturday.

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McGuinty did not give casualty figures or say what caused the fire at the military base, but described the situation as “very, very active and delicate”.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are involved in the investigation, he added.

The Canadian Armed Forces and federal, provincial and local authorities are coordinating the emergency response, McGuinty said.

The nearby community of Wainwright is providing hospital and firefighting support.

The Municipal District of Wainwright said the fire crossed the base’s fence earlier on Saturday and was spreading rapidly in high winds. Firefighters from multiple jurisdictions were responding, and no evacuation order was in effect.

Prime Minister Mark Carney said earlier that a “serious incident” had caused the fire, writing on social media: “Our thoughts are with all the brave women and men affected.”

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith called the fire “significant and tragic” and said it was affecting many military personnel.

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said he has spoken to Carney and McGuinty to offer support. “Pray for Wainwright, everyone,” he wrote on social media, urging people in the area to follow emergency instructions and keep roads clear for first responders.

CFB Wainwright is about 180km (112 miles) southeast of Edmonton and is one of Canada’s busiest military training bases, where soldiers prepare for combat operations.

It is home to the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre, which runs realistic battlefield exercises, and the 3rd Canadian Division Training Centre.

The fire comes two days before Albertans vote on whether the province, home to about five million people, should begin the legal process towards a binding referendum on seceding from Canada.

Carney used his Thanksgiving message last week to call for national unity. %!s()

Six of the assembly’s eight members – five men, one woman – waited patiently at a row of desks and microphones. The heating had been turned up to just short of uncomfortable. Behind them, a portrait of King Charles. From the other walls, dusty photographs of governors, of varying popularity, gazed disinterestedly at the scene.

Proceedings started at the raised hand of a bored-looking young man wearing headphones in the corner. He was transmitting the question and answer session via radio across the dozen or so inhabited islands that make up the 778-strong archipelago.

It was not clear how many of the Falklands’ 3,600 residents were listening in from their farm houses out in the diddle-dee shrub that coats much of the islands, or in the front rooms of Port Stanley’s white clapboard cottages with the pretty coloured roofs; likely not on a par with the number who learned 44 years ago from the Falkland Islands broadcasting station that their lands had been invaded.

“There’s no turning back, we can expect them by dawn,” the governor, Rex Hunt, had said then.

But for those who did tune in on Monday evening, there was much to dwell on. Not so much the answers about the local internet contract or the consultation on the contentious plan for a salmon farm.

“I have another one for you,” piped up one enthusiastic quizzer with a heavy local accent, a West Country burr with a slight antipodean lift. That intervention prompted a little shuffling of tired bums. But a rather more significant announcement was to come.

Lewis Clifton, an assembly member who can date his family’s residence on the Falklands to the late 1870s, advised the islanders that an unprecedented economic war was being waged against them – a community no bigger than an English village – by a country of 46 million people.

“I am concerned that the level of Argentinian thrust this time has been at a different level,” Clifton said. “Perhaps a more vehement and belligerent tone than [seen since] 1982, because it has the potential to threaten our very economic development.”

Facing a downturn in his domestic polling and with an upcoming election, Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, has legislated to criminalise companies and individuals involved in the Falklands’ nascent oil industry, and suggested the fisheries industry on which it currently relies for its prosperity could be next.

The British forces capability at Mount Pleasant airbase – 1,800 personnel there and on Ascension island, four typhoon jets, a ground-based air defence system and with HMS Medway patrolling the waters – makes a military threat from Argentina largely hypothetical. But Buenos Aires has launched a full spectrum attack of another sort.

In response this week, Andy Burnham and his foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, restated the UK’s solidarity with the islanders’ desire to remain British, and promised legislation that might offer some protection against the financial damage imposed by Argentina’s economic sanctions. Interpol received Foreign Office representations suggesting they reject an Argentinian request for arrests relating to the dispute.

For the islanders, it was a welcome show of muscularity. They have never felt entirely confident in the spine of those in power back on the homeland. It was arguably the indifference of Westminster that led Argentina to launch its invasion in the first place back in 1982.

“I have never trusted the Foreign Office and I have been proven right,” said Norma Edwards, 84, whose husband, Roger, 80, a former Royal Marine, was attached to the SAS in the 1982 conflict. “Catching up time,” said Clifton, of what he saw as a belated toughness from London this week. But things remain precarious.

The Falkland Islands might be described as a British success story. Four decades ago, there were 1,800 inhabitants, and its tiny wool-centric economy, 300 miles (480km) east of mainland South America, was dependent on UK government handouts.

Today the population, growing at 3% year-on-year in recent times, includes about 70 different nationalities, attracted by the 26% top rate of tax, good pay and opportunities in a growing and entirely self-reliant economy.

There are Zimbabweans who came to de-mine after the war. Construction workers from South Africa who came to rebuild. Chileans who found something they liked after taking a Latam Airlines flight. The largest minority group is the Filipinos, who came to work in social care and the service industry in the late 1980s and 90s.

Working behind the bar at Groovy’s, a Nepalese waiter said he had come from Dubai. The money was better in the Falklands, he said, and “the people are nicer”. “The locals start at Deano’s bar, then it’s the Victory bar and here – then it is the Globe, for dancing,” he said with a smile. “After that they go to house parties.”

Such has been the Falklands’ success in attracting people that a permanent residency scheme, capped at 90 people a year, has been frozen for 12 months. The islands, for all their challenges, are somewhere people want to be.

All of this had been made possible because of squid, said John Barton, chair of the fishing companies association. “It has been transformational,” he said.

In 1986, the UK allowed the Falklands to establish a 200-nautical-mile exclusive fishing zone in which those wanting to operate had to be licensed by the islands’ government. Licences sold to fleets of Spanish, Korean and Taiwanese “jiggers” have delivered major revenues, but the locals are increasingly running the vessels too.

The islands’ gross domestic production per capita soared as a result, from about £2,000 in 1982 to £85,000 in 2025, putting the islands sixth in the world league table, just behind Norway. The tourism industry is also going strong, with 75,000 or more people spilling out of cruise ships every year at Stanley port, but that is at best a nice addition.

James Wallace, 41, is chief executive of Fortuna, the largest fishing company on the island. It is a growing operation, which last year acquired Cornwall’s oldest fishing business, the Ocean Fish Group. But he is diversifying his business for a reason.

The squid populations in the Falklands waters, on which his company and the islands rely, are hugely variable and it is clear that “catches are declining”, he said. “We have commissioned a bunch of inshore work to see what is happening but the answer is that we don’t yet know,” he said. But there is another natural resource on which the islanders’ hopes are pinned.

About 136 miles north of the Falkland Islands, work is continuing at pace on the Sea Lion oil project led by Israeli firm Navitas and its British partner, Rockhopper Exploration.

Independent estimates suggest the offshore oil field could triple the Falkland Islands’ GDP and deliver a Norway-style sovereign wealth fund. The companies involved remain confident that drilling will commence within months. A new jetty is busy with activity. But the impact of Argentinian pressure cannot be discounted. Two major contractors recently pulled out of the project.

Andrea Clausen, as chief executive of the Falklands government, its top civil servant, works from a building on Thatcher Drive. Her office is opposite the room where Brig Gen Mario Menéndez signed Argentina’s letter of surrender on 14 June 1982. The letter remains on the wall.

Clausen was 10 at the time of the invasion and remembers the Argentinian solders’ arrival. She also recalls cowering with her family in their home in Goose Green, 60 miles west of Stanley, as the British Harrier jets came in with their cluster bombs. “Even now I struggle to cope with the sound of fast jets,” she said.

Clausen sees trauma throughout the islands. “I guess, some extreme behaviour,” she said. “Anger, aggression on certain political subjects.” She is evidently frustrated by the recent Argentinian actions.

“The Falklands has since [19]82 ensured that we are financially independent – save for defence,” she said. “We had no money in 82 and we never want to be in that position again.”

The oil is their insurance, she suggested. “I like to think that better people will de-escalate this because, honestly, we are 4,000 people minding our own business, we have a history deeper and older than theirs.”

There are cycles to Argentinian bellicosity. The opportunistic but ill-fated invasion ordered by Argentina’s dictator general Leopoldo Galtieri, leading to the death of 649 Argentinians and 255 British military personnel, along with three islanders, has cast a pall over Argentinian-UK relations ever since.

But at times, notably in the 1990s, Buenos Aires adopted a hearts-and-minds approach to the islanders, sending videos of the animated series Pingu to their children. Such kindness has tended to evaporate away, though, when an Argentinian government is losing public support at home, as Milei is experiencing now.

But if any one attribute sums up the islanders, it is resilience, said Dot Gould, an assembly member who owns Pebble, a 20-mile long island north-west of the Falklands. She and her husband share the island with a couple who run a lodge, 5,000 sheep, 100 cattle, a load of spectacular wildlife, but not much else.

Rampaging around the undulating terrain in her 4x4 vehicle, avoiding colonies of Rockhopper and Gentoo penguins, Gould points out the scattered remains of an Argentinian fighter jet and the graves of two of the airmen killed during battle. As a child on Pebble, she used to play with the parachutes left by the Argentinians, using them as sails for a go-kart.

“I think, since 1982, this is probably the most serious it’s been for us,” she said. “How effective they will be, we don’t know yet … it’s almost two fingers up: we’ll get on with it, we have to.” But there is much that they want to do.

The islands are dependent on a narrow range of freight links from the UK and South America for much of their fresh produce. Any glitch, and peculiar shortages can emerge. There was a period without milk. A time without beer. During one cherry tomato shortage, which saw their price shoot up, the main supermarket opted to cut them in half and sell them like that to spread the joy.

A sorry-looking cabbage will set you back £8 at the West Store on the front. The local newspaper is the Penguin News (“This one’s not for Penguin News but …” is the traditional opening when disseminating islands gossip). But Facebook is the key means of communication. “Grown men and women use Snapchat like teenagers, often to arrange their extramarital affairs,” said one local.

Other peculiarities include the Falklands government paying for children from the age of 16 to complete their secondary and university education in the UK. The size of the islands’ population makes it impractical to offer such levels of education at home, said Sarah Stannard, the islands’ director of education.

But if the oil money comes online, she would rebuild the primary school. Children from the countryside – it is known locally as “camp” – are offered board in Stanley, although there are also peripatetic teachers and lessons done on the telephone.

The children grow up quickly here, and tend to be keen to broaden their horizons. Oliver Lee, 15, was keen to join the merchant navy. “I would like to see other places,” he said. “The Mediterranean, hotter places basically.” Layla-May Vatemanu, 14, said: “A lot of the boys especially in my class do a lot of sport. Our [friendship group] doesn’t have a lot to do.”

There are no bus services anywhere, and the more distant parts of the islands are only accessible via boat or the Falkland government’s twin-engine aircraft service. On a landmass half the size of Wales, there is only one cashpoint.

Touch rugby – rather than full-contact rugby – is played, in part because the islands’ hospital does not have the capability to deal with complex injuries. Much of the health budget goes on medi-evacs to South America. Yet, for all that, most of the children who leave at 16 do return.

All places are shaped by their history and geography, but some have more history and geography than others. “We are British with a twist,” said Stacy Bragger, a former journalist who represents the Stanley constituency in the assembly.

“We have our own identity. If you were to ask what are the traits of a Falkland islander – resourcefulness, resilience, making do. Because if something breaks you can’t just go down the road. You have to make do. That’s our version of Britishness.”

The islanders also have long memories. “I used to read the Guardian when I was a good deal younger,” said Mike Summers, 73, who sits on the board of the local chamber of commerce. “But I stopped reading it in 1982 when [the editor] Peter Preston just fucked me off so much. He was: ‘Oh well they are a long way away and there is only a few of them – so why don’t we just sell them?’”

On the Argentinian rhetoric, Summers added: “There are a lot of people who still suffer effects from the war – PTSD among the older people. I bumped into someone at the supermarket the other day who I have known for ever. She said: ‘Oh, I’m wondering if I should sell my house and move away. The Argies are going to invade again.’ It seriously affects some people and it is cruel actually.”

Roxy King-Clarke, 40, describes herself as the Falklands’ biggest influencer, with about 60,000 followers. She picked up a major following when posting in response to the Argentinian men’s football team brandishing a “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” [The Malvinas are Argentinian] banner at the World Cup.

She is regularly subjected to abuse for her posts. “The most common insults are to call us pirates, usurpers and colonisers,” she said. “It’s a bizarre thing to be on the receiving end of it all as they speak like we’ve just tipped up here. I can trace my family back to my earliest ancestor arriving here in 1842.”

Her generation too, she suggests, have taken lessons from what happened four decades ago. King-Clarke said she would take a “hard line” to avoid any misinterpretation. “We need to learn from history,” she said, “and not make the same mistakes.” %!s()

In 1878, the first tunnel tree was created in the Tuolumne Grove to draw folks into the Sierra Range, capitalizing on people's interest in Yosemite and every other bit of California's mountainous splendor. A hole was carved in a big ol' Sequoia, now known as Dead Giant. It got this name because it was a 200-foot-tall snag, but it closed in 1993. Not long after that, in 1881, the Wawona Tree in Mariposa Grove was carved and stood until 1969, when a snowy winter took it down. There was also the Pioneer's Cabin Tree in the Calaveras Big Trees State Park, which fell down in a storm in 2017, but served as a tool for attracting tourists and educating the public on Redwoods and why they should be saved for many years. The best part? You can drive through some of them in your car.

Where to drive through a Redwood today

Buddy Mays/Getty Images

Let's riff on where one can drive through a tree today; just be careful, as they can be a literal tourist trap for Nissan Armadas. Luckily, there are a few options. For example, up around Eureka, California, where the Shrine Tree is located. The address is 13708 Avenue of the Giants in Myers Flat, California, and by the way, this big ol' bird's portal was created naturally by a lightning strike, which caused a fire. Then, there's the Chandelier Tree at 67402 Drive Thru Tree Road (aptly named) in Leggett, which has an especially wide opening. We also can't forget the Klamath Tour Thru Tree north of Eureka at 430 CA 169 in Klamath, that was carved as recently as 1976. This one was actually carefully carved around living portions of wood so it wouldn't be stunted.

There's a reason why we can only drive through Coastal Redwoods today, as those are the only types remaining in the lower 48. It may seem kitschy to some, but the greater theme behind this activity attracts us to the greater environments in which these spectacles live, teaches us about their history and why we should continue to preserve them, as well as educates us about broader West Coast history. Plus, who wouldn't want to support the municipalities that call them neighbors? %!s()