Will you be displaying your flag on Monday?

[Miriam]

Not having a flag to raise, I shall work on my needlepoint piece featuring St. George!!!!!

Miriam

[twinsmum]

I have mine ready

[dita]

Me Too,

[Victors Mate]

And me.

[Dorrie]

Thanks for reminding me. I will fly the flag if I can find it.
I too very ignorantly saw my neighbour flying the English flag on his car and I thought. When's England playing then.

[megra]

Very strange, bizarre even. I can understand mindless yobs going in for this sort of thing but I fail to understand why mature, experienced people would see any point in this thoroughly pointless piece of exhibitionism.

[mo]

English and proud of it, that is why I shall be flying my countries flag.

[megra]

I can understand English. I can understand proud of it. But what the hell has any of that got to do with a rag on a stick?! Being proud of one's culture is about embracing that culture and celebrating it: it's history, its fine arts with sculptors such as Hepworth and Moore, and music of Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, William Byrd, Thomas Tallis and its scientists such as William Harvey, Robert Hooke, Joseph Lister and so on, its architects like Inigo Jones through to Stirling and Foster. There is above all its language and the brilliant ways in which it has been used in our literature over 1,000 years, from Beowulf through Piers Plowman and Shakespeare to Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney.

What it is not about is a rag on a stick. Flying one is a tawdry trivialisation of pride in culture.

[vannin]

They fly flags as a statement of national identity.........because they are too reserved to go out and say Happy St George's Day to each other. The supermarket shoppers, fellow bus passengers, the mums at the school gate. You don't have to KNOW them.

That was what I meant on the St George Day thread. It is strange because droves of English people in England wish us Happy St Patricks Day without being reserved about it. Greatly appreciated as I said before.

Yesterday when in the town centre watching the parade (some towns do make the statement) I expressed these wishes 'for today and tomorrow' to several strangers. Blank looks were followed by 'Oh er, thanks'.

[vannin]

Continuation:
Today I was on my mini-bus locally and said 'Happy St George's Day'...........as you do.The two Trinidad-English passengers said 'Wow, is it really, when? today? The Pakistani-English driver turned up his Radio Sunrise banghra music to full decibels which he always does. The three remaining English passengers stayed shtum. The other Irish lady and I exchanged a wink, and that was it!

[doatie]

I have been out and about today and have not seen a single English flag Is it as some of the people on this thread say because we all associate it with football?

I think that possibly it is because the whole of England (there`s a generalisation) is in the grip of some sort of national apathy? The Scots and Welsh fly their appropiate flags.

doatie

[Victors Mate]

I can understand English. I can understand proud of it. But what the hell has any of that got to do with a rag on a stick?! Being proud of one's culture is about embracing that culture and celebrating it: it's history, its fine arts with sculptors such as Hepworth and Moore, and music of Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, William Byrd, Thomas Tallis and its scientists such as William Harvey, Robert Hooke, Joseph Lister and so on, its architects like Inigo Jones through to Stirling and Foster. There is above all its language and the brilliant ways in which it has been used in our literature over 1,000 years, from Beowulf through Piers Plowman and Shakespeare to Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney.

What it is not about is a rag on a stick. Flying one is a tawdry trivialisation of pride in culture.

Megra That is my view also. To your list I would add many poets and writers and of course Tom Payne and then there is Constable, Turner and Gainsborough. All far more worthy of celebration and pride in your fellow being.

"Just now the lilac is in bloom,
All before my little room;
And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink;
And down the borders, well I know,
The poppy and the pansy blow...
Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,
Beside the river make for you
A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep
Deeply above; and green and deep
The stream mysterious glides beneath,
Green as a dream and deep as death.
- Oh, damn! I know it! and I know
How the May fields all golden show,
And when the day is young and sweet,
Gild gloriously the bare feet
That run to bathe
Du Lieber Gott!

Here am I, sweating, sick, and hot,
And there the shadowed waters fresh
Lean up to embrace the naked flesh.
Temperamentvoll German Jews
Drink beer around; - and here the dews
Are soft beneath a morn of gold.
Here tulips bloom as they are told;
Unkempt about those hedges blows
An English unofficial rose;
And there the unregulated sun
Slopes down to rest when day is done,
And wakes a vague unpunctual star,
A slippered Hesper; and there are
Meads towards Haslingfield and Coton
Where das Betreten's not verboten."

Another Englishman worthy of celebration Rupert Brooke.

[Monika]

Megra ......... I haven't been out today, so I have no idea how many people have been 'flying the flag' but I do know that there will definitely not be any 'RAGS on STICKS' only FLAGS, many of which will be flown from flag-POLES.

I see nothing tawdry, nor trivial, about the English flag(although it would be both these things if it were, indeed, a rag on a stick); it is the visible statement of pride in one's heritage encompassing everything you mention, and more.

Furthermore, it is nowadays, for me, a definite two-fingered salute to all those currently seeking to destroy my birthright/ my identity by removing the word 'English' from as many places as possible.

[mo]

I have seen loads of the St George flag flying today. Outside house windows, on car arials and some of the pubs had banners and large flags flying.

Funny how some members can find something to moan about.

[Victors Mate]

Megra ......... I haven't been out today, so I have no idea how many people have been 'flying the flag' but I do know that there will definitely not be any 'RAGS on STICKS' only FLAGS, many of which will be flown from flag-POLES.

I see nothing tawdry, nor trivial, about the English flag(although it would be both these things if it were, indeed, a rag on a stick); it is the visible statement of pride in one's heritage encompassing everything you mention, and more.

Furthermore, it is nowadays, for me, a definite two-fingered salute to all those currently seeking to destroy my birthright/ my identity by removing the word 'English' from as many places as possible.

Monika speaking for myself it is not the flag that is important in the same way that it is an accomplished performer that is important and admired not the suit he happens to be wearing.