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The Manx Coat of Arms is legs. Pardon? I mean, the Manx flag carries the well-known three-legged symbol which is sometimes mistaken for the Nazi one although that has four legs. Nobody knows which way the legs are supposed to run – clockwise or anti-clockwise – and even official documents can vary in which direction their triple limbs point. The motto of the Isle of Man is “quocunque jeceris stabit”, meaning “whichever way you throw me, I stand”, referring, of course, to the three legs. When the new harbour was built in Douglas, the inner wall was made of three-sided blocks that slotted together and which were known as “stabits”
The other, perhaps best known, production from the island is the TT races, held at the beginning of June each year over what is considered to be one of the most dangerous of all circuits – narrow, bendy roads that dip down into steep-banked hollows, climb up the side of a mountain and down again, negotiate towns, villages and, occasionally, the odd sheep that has escaped from its pasture beside the road. At this time there are more than 6,000 motorbikes in the island and the whole atmosphere buzzes with excitement and anticipation.