The Union Flag (or Jack). How cool or admired is it in CH?

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Not a big downer on London it has it's positives, unfortunately it's representative of where most tourists go.

So they pick up all UK food is awful, which I suppose is right if you live of kebabs and mcdonalds.

To even the score here's some good food in London

http://www.quaglinos-restaurant.co.uk/

http://www.harveynichols.com/restaur...don-restaurant

http://www.manze.co.uk/

I disagree about the cheese then again I've lived in South Wales, Cornwall and the Midlands, which means if I get off my butt I can go straight to the farmers markets or shops

122
You'll find it at GAA matches as well as in Ravenhill for Ulster Rugby games.

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Re: The Union Flag vs the Cross of St George.

I used to feel uncomfortable with the (perceived) symbolism of the Union Flag, and even went through a brief 'English Nationalist' phase (rather foolishly, I believed that it was possible to be an English Nationalist without being a racist prick. I was wrong. There does not appear to be an intelligent English equivalent of Plaid Cymru or the SNP... but I digress...) until I realised that the Union Flag is actually the least offensive, most inclusive of the flags of the United Kingdom.

For a start, it represents three of the four nations that each contribute to a country which continues to be one of the most successful in history (it would be nice to include Wales, but defacing the flag with the Welsh dragon would ruin the lovely design of the current flag). I'm not exactly Mr Patriotic, but compared to most countries, the United Kingdom isn't bad. Most people have a decent quality of life, access to proper healthcare, the ability to have a holiday occasionally, a school to which they can send their children. It isn't England which has achieved this - it is the United Kingdom . Even if one is embarrassed by the history of British imperialism (I'm not, but I understand that some people are), one cannot deny the contributions made by citizens of all four nations: their genius, their labour, their entrepreneurial spirit, their willingness to get their hands dirty to build, trade, fight and farm. Where would the modern United Kingdom be without Scottish engineers, Welsh miners, Northern Irish shipbuilders, English mill workers? All of these people are represented on the Union Flag. Few of them are represented on the exclusive flags of the constituent nations.

Furthermore, the Union Flag can be seen as representing the citizens of the new Britain. Many of my friends of Indian origin refuse to identify themselves as 'English', but are quite happy to accept the label of 'British'. To discard the Union Flag in favour of the Cross of St George is to deny those British people of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Caribbean and African origins (to name just a few) a flag under which they can stand and be counted.

A flag represents whatever you want it to represent. Just because a few rather foolish individuals have chosen to wave the Union Flag while indulging in acts of tribalism, racism and xenophobia, that is no reason for all of us to abandon it as a symbol to represent the rest of us. On the contrary - it is time to reclaim the flag, to take it back on behalf of all the people of Britain (and those in Northern Ireland who also wish to be part of it - they're not all thugs and murderers, despite what the BBC would have us believe), and to recognise it as a symbol of all that is good about the United Kingdom.

Like British cheese , for example...

The flag belongs to us. All of us*. Let's wave it with a smile.

*Well, not Johnny Foreigner, obviously. But who cares what he thinks?

124
Good post, but just a quibble

Why should any flag unite everybody? Living in Switzerland we are almost every day reminded of the fact that waving a Swiss flag and waving an Argovian flag is no contradiction in terms. There is a time and a place to wave the flag of my town, of my county, of my country and of my nation and it's perfectly fine to change the flag depending on the event and situation. I can even imagine waving somebody else's flag out of sympathy if the occasion warrants it. And if anybody feels excluded, then he is welcome to wave his own. Flags are not primarily about excluding those who don't fit but about including those who do.

So I don't by default interpret a Scottish flag to be anti-British or a Bavarian flag to be anti-German, although I realise that in some cases it is precisely that. But just because certain narrow-minded people wave their flags to exclude, I don't think we should assume that to be the norm.

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You are absolutely right - and that's really my point. Some people would have us believe that there is never a right time to wave the Union Flag. I disagree with them.

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I wouldn't deny that there are good restaurants in the UK. But look at those prices! With those prices I think you might be able to find a good restaurant anywhere, even in a pricey country like err... Switzerland...

Visitors to the UK are probably largely from the US and France. In those countries, with a medium budget you can eat rather well. Go to any small restaurant for lunch in France with 15 euros and you'll know what I mean. Now try to find a decent lunch in the UK for £10.

Don't take me wrong, I really love the UK. But I wouldn't visit there for the food.

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And anywhere East of Bristol, is "up north".

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London food = London Prices, if you want cheap food go to Thailand, you can't get anything under 20 quid half decent.

Still remains good food can be found, but you have to look and be willing to pay more than big mac prices, like anywhere in Europe.

129
The London 2012 Olympics are also featuring the Union Flag prominently. These are a few of their products.

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But that's not because the union jack is so cool, but because the 2012 logo is so butt-ugly that nobody wants to buy a souvenir t-shirt or cup with it... The only worse design I can think of is "Twipsy":

When I lived in Hannover, they were trying to sell the Expo 2000 souveniers at 80% discount for years afterwards.... I foresee the same to be the case with anything that has this on it:

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The 2012 mascot is even worse than the logo. Even a Union Flag design doesn't enhance it much.

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Switzerland has its Kantönligeist - here it is accepted to wave your national banner next to some local one. For most non-Swiss this is something ranging from "cute" to mildly weird.

For most European countries is the national flag a symbol that exactly is meant to include people, while local flags are supposed to exclude people... when most countries took shape, they didn't do so without problems: It was the time of the "Restauration" and the leaders of Europe tried to turn back time and make the achievements of the French revolution disappear. The people united, armed themselves and revolted. Most flags came up in their current shape around the revolutions of 1848. The reason why most flags have three colors is that they were adaptions of the French one - at least in Germany, Belgium, Italy... the message of the banner was:

1. I believe that the king should not be absolute and the souvereign should be the people.

2. I consider myself part of this "people" and consider my nation as something more important than my city or region. (That is what "Deutschland über Alles" was originally intended to mean before the Nazis hi-jacked the verse - to express the country to be higher than other countries... there is sometimes a thin line between patriotism and nationalism...)

So the origin of the flags is "We need a symbol to express that we are all included in the people"... and the same is the idea of the union jack: They did not "merge" the flags for fun, but wanted to express "you are now visibly part of something bigger than before". I find this "merging" actually the unique part of it which makes it an icon.

So for me, waving a Bavarian banner is something fairly ignorant. It is totally acceptable to print it on a package of sausages to indicate the origin, but if a group of people waves it, it is clearly meant to exclude. The reasons why flags are mainly used in sport is because a football game is always "we against you" - your flag, no matter if it is your region or simply your club, identifies you and excludes the ones who wave the other one...

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I would not take this aspect too seriously ! As the SVP proves almost daily, you can use ANY flag for racist, supremacist, arrogant and xenophobe propaganda !

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Nation states such as Germany and Italy emerged in the 19th Century, not directly due to the Vienna Congress but you could say that things were already moving and developing that accelerated around that time that led to the many small and still partially feudal princedoms breaking down and merging into modern nation states (and of course the Vienna Congress was helpful in that). France and Britan became nation states a bit earlier and the mechanisms were also somewhat different (mostly due to one lot gradually annexing their neighbours and enforcing political unity, this histories of France and Britain are quite parallel in this respect). However, whether you are looking at the British/French style or the German/Italian style, both had the challenge of integrating disparate nations and to some extent the challenge was to create an artificial identity and sell this to people so they would feel as one nation. So people were given national flags to wave instead of their previous local flags, and were taught to sing national anthems instead of their tribal war chants (most national anthems were composed around this period). This often went hand in hand with colonial expansion and this was only possible if they acted as a single nation. At the same time education and snobbism helped push local languages and dialects onto their long and slow slide into insignificance.

Today, the challenge has changed. The great nation states are established and with them their flags and national anthems. These things no longer need to be fostered and protected because they are strong enough to stand by themselves. People are however showing interest in their local identities. People are rediscovering the beauty of Breton or Welsh or Gaelic poetry. They are also realising that the nation states that were sold to them by the powers that were are a bit empty in certain respects. You have heard of Welsh and Scottish and Lancashire folk dances, of Eistedfodds and Hal-An-Toe. But have you heard of a United Kingdom folk dance or celebration? Everybody knows that lederhosen come from Bavaria and cuckoo clocks from the Black Forest, but can you think of an all-Germany equivalent? People are flying the flags of their region because they prefer it to the boring and bland anonymity that the larger unit represents. A lot of this new regional "nationalism" is not exclusive but inclusive. It's not about them against us but it's about we have a great culture and you can come and share. You don't have to be a full blood Irishman to have fun on St Patrick's day. To simplify this as being "Kantönligeist" is missing something very significant IMHO.

And I don't think this should be about choosing one over the other. There are things I like about being British and things I like about being English and I don't think having a dual identity is a problem.

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I agree. The Union Flag is an icon, instantly recognisable all over the world. It fits perfectly for those of us who can trace our roots back to more than one of the 4 united countries. It's also great to see it feature on the flags of Australia, New Zealand and regional flags such as Hawaii and some of the Canadian Provinces.

The Union Flag was designed at a time when Wales was a principality of England, so that's why there's no dragon on it (or alternatively a St David's Cross). It can be thus argued that Wales is indeed represented on the flag. It was also designed when the whole of Ireland was part of the UK and that's where the Cross of St Patrick originally comes from. Due to the changes in country borders you could say the flag is now a bit of a compromise but it would be a crime to redesign it.

I think it's great to celebrate what's unique about Wales, Scotland or England so their flags should be flown, but the Union Flag should be there too. I read that the Union Flag is the only official flag in Northern Ireland.

136
Understatement of the day...

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Even the Queen is calling on graphic designers to update the Union Flag.

This is the logo for the Diamond Jubilee next year.

http://www.thamesdiamondjubileepageant.org/

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When I saw that contraption, I somehow came to think of adult toys

139
I would like to take a small issue with you use of "most". AFAIK, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark all regularly used their current flags in 17th century (Denmark claims a first use dating back to 1219). The Czeck (former Czeckoslovak) dates from 1918, and I think Portugal got its current one around 1910 (first republic). I don't know about Poland, Russia, Spain, Hungary and Austria.

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Austria: 1230

Russia: 1668

Spain: 1785

Hungary: 1848

Poland: 1919

...sorry, Treverus, the theory just don't fit the facts