Category Archives: Flags

The One That Is Shouting ‘GOOOOOAAAAAAL!’. . .

Posted on by
Reply

Ahhhh, World Cup year. I do love the World Cup. Always have, I have found it enchanting since I was a little boy. I love the way the players’ shirts shimmer in the hot summer sun (although not this year, it’ll be winter in South Africa), the reaction of the players and supporters of the smaller nations when they cause an upset, or even in some cases just score a goal. I love seeing the unbridled joy of one set of players when they score a victory over their bitterest opponents. I love the almost guaranteed emergence of a new star on the world scene and the drama of the penalty shootout (normally in the Quarter-Finals where England will lose). I love tournament football, there really is nothing like it. You can keep your Monaco Grand Prix, your Olympic Games, Six Nations, Wimbledon, Superbowl, hell, even The Ashes (which I also love), they are all fine events, but none of them compare to the World Cup.

I could write a huge missive about what is wrong with the game, and there’s plenty, but once every four years a large proportion of the country is brought together, collectively willing our players not to make an arse of it in the Quarter Finals against Portugal/Germany/Argentina/Brazil again. It is a good thing.

However there are one or two things in a World Cup year which are equally as predictable as England’s Quarter-Final exit. There will be the tut-tutting about working days lost when England are playing. There will be pursing of lips about the promo offers on booze in supermarkets and pubs. There will be children sent home from school because they’ve copied Beckham’s latest fashion statement (this year it’s called the ‘foot cast’) and someone somewhere will be banned from flying the St. George Cross.

Imagine my shame when I realised that is was my own home town.

Taxi drivers in a Kent city are upset after being told they are not allowed to fly flags from their vehicles during the World Cup football tournament.

Canterbury City Council has said attaching England flags to cabs would breach rules on what can be displayed on public service vehicles.

Why? What bloody harm will it do? No. People won’t get offended. It’s the national flag of England, for crying out loud. You wouldn’t see the same about the Saltire on cabs in Elgin or the dragon in Merthyr, would you?

Larissa Laing, from the council, said: “We accept that many taxi drivers want to be patriotic and we have been fully supportive of them wearing England shirts.

Oh, that’s nice. Isn’t that nice? The nice lady from the council will let the people in their own private businesses wear what they want. A big cheer for her.

“However, it is a public service vehicle and as such there are very strict rules and what can and cannot be displayed on a taxi and sadly an England flag, or any flag, cannot be displayed.”

The rules ban any signs, letters, motifs, emblems, or marks from taxis.

Yes. But why? This is one of those we just want you to ask our permission so we can hum and har about it before making a great show of very generously granting the request which you so humbly put before us.

Larissa Laing almost won authoritarian fuckwit of the month. Almost.

The thing is, what do they do in places where there’s no World Cup participation? How does one show one’s absolute idiocy and total removal from pragmatism and reality then? Let’s go somewhere where the team didn’t qualify. Let’s go to Northern Ireland.

There was a policeman, sat in his vehicle, having objects thrown at him by a group of youths. What did he do? Did he shoot them? Did he hit them with his asp? Did he run them down? Did he refer them to an inclusivity outreach diversity community cohesion liaison officer? No. He played ice-cream van music over the speakers of his police car.

Young people were throwing bottles at a Land Rover vehicle in Lisburn last Saturday when the officer used the tannoy to play the tunes.

A police spokesperson said an officer had used humour to defuse the situation and the trouble had stopped.

However, senior officers are believed to have spoken to the officer involved.

I’m hoping that when they spoke to him they said. ‘Well done, you showed initiative, guile and humanity. You are a credit to the Police Service of Northern Ireland.’ I’m betting they didn’t.

Ah, no, they didn’t.

“The youths stopped throwing the bottles. However, police accept that this was not an appropriate action.

“The officer has been spoken to by a senior officer in order to establish the circumstances of the incident.”

Hang on, are you suggesting that you wanted the officer to get out to hand out a kicking, running the risk that he’d get one himself, or to sit waiting for backup to arrive and hand out a kicking, whilst running the risk that they’d get into his car and give him a kicking?

Look, I’ve problems with the way policing is done in this country. I’ve a problem with the way some police officers act. Senior officers will back these horrible little SS wannabes to the hilt. Show me an officer who acts in exactly the way we’d all want an officer to act in a difficult situation and you feed him to the lions. Really? Seriously? WTF? Look, these kids deserved a good, hard kicking, but he was obviously on his tod, what he supposed to do?

So we’ll leave the authoritarian fuckwit of the week award to Cllr Angela Nelson (SF):

Angela Nelson told the Andersonstown News that the officer’s actions “beggared belief”.

“The PSNI are put on the streets to do a serious job and that is to keep order on the streets and face down anti-social elements. This is like a sick joke.

“It goes against everything we are trying to solve and eradicate in the area.”


Now, I’ve no love for either side in Northern Ireland, it’s like Israel vs. Palestine but with wetter weather and better music, they can all go to hell, but people still vote for them, so there you go. Anyhow, I’m betting that the kids were Protestant and the SF lot are disgusted that they didn’t get the kicking they so richly deserved, or the kids were Catholic and the Protestant humiliated them instead of calling for the inclusivity outreach diversity community cohesion liaison officer over his radio.

Jesus Christ in a World Cup Willie costume on a pogo-stick, what is wrong with these people?

The One That Thinks Perhaps All Is Not Lost . . .

Posted on by
1

The Kent Messenger local paper in Canterbury ran a story recently about Tory councillors in the city that elected only to fly the European rag on May 9th, Europe Day.* It would appear that other councils regularly fly the blue thing with stars alongside the Union Flag.

The story says:

[. . .] the Department of Culture Media and Sport [. . .] suggests flying the Union flag on 19 days a year, including the Queen and Prince Philip’s birthdays, Commonwealth Day, Remembrance Sunday and St George’s Day.

Now everyone seems to point to the US as the worst excess of flag-waving nationalism and I must admit that I find their take on it a little extreme on occasion, I prefer the attitude shown by Canada and Denmark. If you go to Toronto or Copenhagen (two utterly charming cities and places I highly recommend visiting) you will see their national flags flying everywhere, all the time. It is done without jingoism or chest beating, it is merely a quiet, confident self assured feeling of pride in their nation. It doesn’t mean that the Canadians look down on anyone, or rampaging groups of Danes go around beating seven shades of shit out of any passing Norwegians, it just says, ‘You are in Denmark/Canada, we like our country and are very proud of who we are’. And rightly so. No state is Utopia, every country has its problems but all things considered I can think of no countries that afford better opportunities or a more agreeable life than Canada or Denmark.

I wonder what Copenhagen City Council would say if their equivalent of the Dept. of Culture, Media, Sport, Watermelons, Navel Gazing and Losing The Will To Bloody Live came rocking up and ‘suggested’ a list of days when it is deemed acceptable to fly the Dannebrog? I’m assuming the normally quiet, reserved and considered Danes would find some old Viking blood boiling under the surface, and perhaps an old Viking battle axe under the stairs.

Now, the KM instigated a poll about this lack of EuroRag, and I appreciate that these things are not accurate, I also appreciate that I have no idea about the political (if any) bias that prevails at Kent Messenger Towers and that the following quotes suit my purposes entirely:

Carl Taylor, who gave his address as England, said in his Speak Out comments: “The EU flag as far as I am concerned stands for slavery to the great EU-uber state. I shall always fly the one that means the most to me – the George Cross.”

Derek George, from Margate, shows his feelings for the EU flag with the comment: “I keep an EU flag near the bathroom……..you never know when you will run out of toilet paper!!”

And Neil Bailey, from Herne Bay, says the Union Flag should be flown at public buildings all year round, together with the St George’s flag, and adds: “We are too prone to giving up our national identity in this country and should not be ashamed of promoting Britain.”

Linda Clegg, of Westgat-on Sea, had an emphatic no to flying the EU flag. She says: “I am English, not British, and as such want to see our own English flag flying at all times, not the European flag. I will never consider myself European!”

Now, of course, Westminster and Brussels/Strasbourg would have us believe that we all want to live together as bestest friends in the world ever. That is why we don’t need a say, because it’s obvious, is it not? The Irish were mistaken and it is time to investigate what democracy actually means – H/T to Trixy. (Do watch the video attached to her posting, it is thoroughly chilling.)

We are concerned that we are sleepwalking to serfdom and that people will quietly accept the salami slicing of their liberties. Perhaps this ridiculous stealth union that we have NEVER been given a say on is really beginning to lose its life force.

Here’s hoping.

* Wiki describes Europe Day ‘as an annual celebration of peace and unity in Europe.’
Great, when do the lorry loads of EastAsian soldiers turn up for execution? Give me strength. It would be remiss of me not to mention NATO.