Monday 27 August 2012

More Musings.

I was thinking tonight that it’s the kiss of death for any political party to promise to help the poor. In these ultra-materialistic times, most people are conditioned to think of themselves as moderately prosperous, and 'poor' has become a four letter word. So if a party offers to help the poor, most people will say ‘Well, that’s not me, is it?’ and won’t vote for them.

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And I was wondering last night whether anything in existence is permanent. The only thing I could come up with was oblivion.

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There’s a right and a wrong way to hang the Union Flag. The right way is to have the long white bit at the top edge of the top inner corner. If it’s hung wrongly, people say it’s upside down, but that isn’t necessarily so. It is if the flag is rotated through 180° around the lateral axis, but if it’s rotated around the fore and aft axis, it remains correct. It all depends on the definition of ‘upside down.’ Isn’t that just incredibly interesting?

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Wouldn't you think I'd have better ways to spend my time than this? I have, but at the moment I'm resting my right shoulder (and so far, it isn't working.)

2 comments:

Wendy S. said...

As the Buddhists would say that the only thing impermanent is impermanence but oblivious sounds right to me.

And I read this about the U. Jack although it may be total hogwash. The Jack flag is only known as a Union Jack when it's out on sea (I presume some military happening) and the rest of the time it's called a union flag. Sounds pretty sketchy to me.

JJ said...

Mel quoted the Buddhist view to me the other night. I said 'What about oblivion?' and she said 'Mmm....)

So, here's the full story on the Union Thingy:

It all depends on the derivation of the term Union Jack, which is uncertain. The most commonly accepted view is that it derives from the practice of Royal Naval ships flying a flag at the head of the foc'sle when in harbour. That flag is known as a 'jack' and the pole it flies from is the jack staff. If that case is accepted, then the term Union Jack is only correctly used in a naval context, and it should generally be known as the Union Flag.

On the other hand, there are those who dispute the widely accepted derivation and claim that the naval connection is irrelevant. In that case, Union Jack is correct.

What you can say is this:

1) While there is dispute over the correctness of 'Union Jack,' there is none over 'Union Flag.' So if you want to play safe...

2) The term 'Union Jack' is almost universally used in Britain, and since 'correctness' is ultimately established by use and not the mean mindedness of the grammar Nazis, you may consider it perfectly OK to use the term if you want to.