[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Okay–I’ll leave you Brits to argue amongst yourselves. (does anyone really think the summation of all feelings, thoughts and desires can be shown in one symbol of anything?).
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know - maybe it can. Symbology can be powerful stuff.
I really don’t have a problem with it insofar as it works for other people, I just don’t care to use this particular example of it for personal application.
[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
FWIW, I have a union Jack on my car’s back bumper–a souvenir from my last trip to UK. Since my heritage is a hodgepodge of Scotland, England, Wales and northern Ireland, I figure it covers the bases. 
[/QUOTE]
It covers all the bases except Wales. It is not represented on the union jack.
Fun fact, the term Jackeen is used in Ireland as a derogatory term for a Dubliner. We’re more British than the rest of them apparently.
[QUOTE=chowder]
And something else:
What Englishman or woman has not watched or been to the Promenade Concerts and when “Land of Hope and Glory” is being belted out and sung by the whole hall not felt an inner glow…fucking hell I’ve been and the tears ran down my cheeks and did I care?
Not in the slightest
[/QUOTE]
A couple of years ago I went to my first American high school graduation ceremony and it came as quite a shock to find the introduction to the ceremony consists of hundreds of kids filing in to Pomp and Circumstance. (To the puzzled: Land of Hope and Glory is sung to the music of Pomp and Circumstance. It would be like an American going to the UK and seeing a ceremony done to the music of God Bless America. Except we don’t have high school graduation.)
And I must add: garius nailed it.
[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Really? Where’d he say it was a legal requirement? Or is this a multiple choice for him to pick to clarify his position?
My position is this.
If you want to fly the flag do so, if you don’t, don’t.
I do, not because I have to but because I’m an Englishman who is, despite all the slings and arrows that have been cast at my country, still proud to be English.
Finally: Surely to be born an Englishman is to win first prize in the lottery of life.
I forget who penned that but by God he had it right as far as I’m concerned
[QUOTE=An Gadaí]
It covers all the bases except Wales. It is not represented on the union jack.
Fun fact, the term Jackeen is used in Ireland as a derogatory term for a Dubliner. We’re more British than the rest of them apparently.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, fuck the Welsh. Can’t understand a word they say, anyway. (just kidding).
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
As noted above, for a while seemingly the only people in Britain flying the Union Jack or St. George’s Cross (outside of football stadia) were National Front-types, or the sort of people who wanted people like me (English-born and still a proud citizen, but of Indian descent) beaten bloody in a gutter or shipped off to “wherever I came from”.
[/QUOTE]
And Andy Pipkin, IIRC
[QUOTE=amarone]
A couple of years ago I went to my first American high school graduation ceremony and it came as quite a shock to find the introduction to the ceremony consists of hundreds of kids filing in to Pomp and Circumstance. (To the puzzled: Land of Hope and Glory is sung to the music of Pomp and Circumstance. It would be like an American going to the UK and seeing a ceremony done to the music of God Bless America. Except we don’t have high school graduation.)
[/QUOTE]
You do seem to do an awful lot of ceremonies to the music of"My Country, 'Tis of Thee," however.
[QUOTE=zagloba]
You do seem to do an awful lot of ceremonies to the music of"My Country, 'Tis of Thee," however.
[/QUOTE]
My girlfriend gets the same dig in all the time.
[QUOTE=An Gadaí]
It covers all the bases except Wales. It is not represented on the union jack.
[/QUOTE]
Wales doesn’t get represented on the flag because it’s a principality rather than a country, although some of the Welsh will claim that half the red bit’s theirs!
[QUOTE=ScareyFaerie]
Wales doesn’t get represented on the flag because it’s a principality rather than a country, although some of the Welsh will claim that half the red bit’s theirs!
[/QUOTE]
It’s because the crosses represent kingdoms rather than countries. Wales had been annexed by the kingdom of England, so it is represented, by the cross of St George.
I love telling Welsh people that 
Let them be warned: Old England is brave Old England still.
We’ve proved our might, we’ve claimed our right, and ever, ever will.
Should we have to draw the sword our way to victory we’ll forge,
With the Battle cry of Britons, “Old England and St George!”
[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
It’s because the crosses represent kingdoms rather than countries. Wales had been annexed by the kingdom of England, so it is represented, by the cross of St George.
[/QUOTE]
You know that, and I know that - it’s the Welsh who seem to have trouble understanding!
Plus, it’s already quite a busy design. Imagine it with a huge red dragon shoved in between the crosses.
[QUOTE=Usram]
Plus, it’s already quite a busy design. Imagine it with a huge red dragon shoved in between the crosses.
[/QUOTE]
One of our projects in History way back when was designing a new Jack which included Wales, too. Since heraldic depictions usually vary a lot - hard to draw the same lion every time - there isn’t really an “official” dragon image, so I just drew it from the neck up and incorporated it into the boss of the St. George’s Cross.
Won a prize for it, in fact.
The Home Economics teacher tried to make one - the school was in H&W, so there were lots of Welsh kids - but failed rather miserably. It looked a bit like a UJ with a red Pokemon on it.
I think it would be improved with a picture of the huge red dragon sodomising the queen but I am a republican.
garius, well said. Who wouldn’t be proud of a realm that has given the world Magna Carta, common law, constitutional monarchy, Winston Churchill, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, William Shakespeare, William Boyce, Edward Elgar, Jane Austen, H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, J.K. Rowling, Charles Dickens and so much more?
I’m proud to be an American, but have a lot of English blood in me. I made it a point to wear a lapel pin with crossed Union Flag and Star-Spangled Banner on April 23. I have a Union Flag but not a St. George’s Cross flag; maybe I should acquire one.
Tell me, do the Scots go nuts on St. Andrew’s Day?
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
I’m proud to be an American, but have a lot of English blood in me. I made it a point to wear a lapel pin with crossed Union Flag and Star-Spangled Banner on April 23. I have a Union Flag but not a St. George’s Cross flag; maybe I should acquire one.
Do the Scots go nuts on St. Andrew’s Day?
[/QUOTE]
The Scots go nuts every day 
how about a huge queen sodomizing a red dragon?
i’m an internet pornographican.
[QUOTE=chowder]
The Scots go nuts every day
[/QUOTE]
No, seriously. Is it a big holiday for them?
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
No, seriously. Is it a big holiday for them?
[/QUOTE]
Don’t think so. Burns Night seems to be a bigger deal.
[QUOTE=garius]
how about a huge queen sodomizing a red dragon?
i’m an internet pornographican.
[/QUOTE]
Personally speaking I’d like to see a big red dragon sodomizing 'ol jug ears.
Now that’s a sight I’d pay to see.
In answer to Elendils question…yes they do or so I’m told by a Scottish pal, but not on the scale that the Irish do on St.Pats piss up day…nossir, not by a long shot