THOSE FUCKING ENGLAND FLAGS!

Okaaaaayyyyy....

http://www.vistech.net/users/rsturge/calflag1.gif

As you can see by the red star and the logo, we are also an independent country and Communist.

http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/Web/Graphics/graphics.nsf/graphics/Warwickshire+Coat+of+arms/$file/coatofarms.jpg

The Coventry coat of arms *should* feature Lady Godiva.

They also make for great weapons

I love you dog latin, for summing up my general state of mind over the last few weeks in ways that I never could.

England's youth are the equivalent to other countries doddering old war veterans, especially when football is involved.

I wish the US flag had been this. Also cool:

http://home.att.net/~bzygo2/nh97.jpg

happiness, more or less, it's about cutting trees, something in my liberty.

oh my my!

I called a French player a name last night. It was Willy Spagbol.

does that include wooden legs?

i'm really happy when Germany lose. i don't like to see them succeed. nor Brazil. only because it feels predictable and i long for hierarchal change. nothing against the nation, it's people or it's customs - quite the opposite in fact.

but still a tasty one right?

Blaming sport for jingoism and nationalism is like blaming religion for war, there's the assumption that the jingoism would'nt find another outlet if football, cricket, rugby or whatever had never existed.

Kate, have you ever been to an international match? Did you see the English fans walking up and down the stands in the last World Cup carrying Japanese and Korean children on their shoulders? Have you watched the buildup to a big match and seen footage of both sets of fans mingling amicably in the streets and bars beforehand? Have you seen the hordes of fans getting colorfully dressed up and using the event as an excuse for a massive party? Chances are you haven't - you'd rather do pretty much anything else.

Of course there's been crowd trouble and hooliganism and riots in the past, unfortunately there will be in the future, but these events are in the minority, and its hardly the 1980s all over again. What you're doing is targeting this massive area and going "its ritualised warfare, its all divisive and evil and wrong" when sport can be as much a unifying factor as a divisive one. Look at the lineup in the average Premiership fixture and see how many people of how many nationalities are inspiriring such adoration from the fans.

What you're doing is like blaming the whole of 60s rock music for the violence at Altamont. I'm not saying you should have any interest in football, but you're letting your distaste for the subject colour your whole perception of something of which you are largely, if not entirely, ignorant.

The ice dancing hooligans are a fearsome bunch.

If you said "there's still far too much of this kind of behaviour in football and it should be stamped out - these attitudes, and the way in which the game deals with it, have to change" I would have agreed with you. Its still unfair to use it as a stick to beat the whole game with, especially as football has done as much, if not more, to counter racism than it has to foster it.

bump

lots of tiny flags in hammersmith, strung tightly from lamp post to lamp post.

one of the post-v1* houses a couple of roads over has a couple of large ones and some bunting.

park flagpost, not yet.

(* there's a gap in a terrace filled with two obviously cheaply-built blocks. graffiti in the plaster work is dated 1945)

you had one job...