Flying the Flag

Are you sitting comfortably. Then I will begin.

Once upon a time there was a green engine called Gordon. He always thought he was the best engine on the whole of the line. And sure enough about a month ago it came to be that all the other engines recognised him as their leader.

This made him puff out more and more smoke [not really a green engine you may say] and one of his puffs of smoke was about the flying of the Union Jack on Government Buildings.

This is very important said Gordon and we all need to think about when to fly our flag. After all the Americans think their flag is very important and people in other countries are so excited about our flag some times they set it on fire.

Do you know that the Union Jack must be flown on 18 days in the year [see link for the days http://www.culture.gov.uk/flagflying/dates.htm ] at full mast from 8am until sunset. This includes the birthdays of the Queen the Duke of Edinburgh the Queen's children and their wives.

Gordon believes that the Union Jack should be flown more often. But when our civic leaders in Birmingham wanted to fly the flag at half mast recently to honour one of the councillors who had died thay were told by some functionary in London that this was not possible.

Why you may ask? It was the birthday of the Duchess of Cornwall....and the flag must fly at full mast.

So Gordon until you can fix it that the Union Jack flies on public buildings on every day except for the birthdays of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall I can assure you of one thing.

There will be no Union Jacks flown over the Tardis.

Percys

Ever wondered what people really think about you??

Last Sunday Mrs FLN decided I needed some Percy Pigs. By today I hadn't managed to find the time or knawing desire to eat the pigs. So I decided they might be just the treat my team in the office needed to enable the day to pass with an extra bit of fizz......

.........and what do you know by 6pm not one was left not even for yours truly. So now we understand what Ally McBeal was really taking with her morning coffee.

What about tomorrow? Haribo may be??

Diaries....

....there is a silver lining in every cloud they say. And when we went to the Lake District for our 2 week holiday there were plenty of clouds and lots of the material that falls from them.


And the silver lining (?), or one of them, provided by Mrs FLN and Teapot was a DVD of the diary of Bridget Jones; and later in the week, Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason.


There is the something scary even for Timelords in being with 2 women watching films based on such goings on. It was never like that on Gallifray and I can assure readers, in case you are concerned, that Bridget Jones is just not at the races when it comes to Martha Jones.


Last week we had the publication of the Alastair Campbell Diaries and we were hooked on the BBC2 serialisation. Whatever else may have been said and written about the Prince of Spin [Alistair not Ashley Giles] he is a life long supporter of Burnley Football Club.


FLN once went to an evening with Alistair at Symphony Hall. He had a signed Burnley FC shirt as a prize and to his great delight FLN won it. He won it by telling a story about Teapot and her dad.

Back in 1961 Burnley went to the FA Cup Final to play Tottenham Hotspur and both Teapot and her dad were season ticket holders that year and therefore in with a big chance of a ticket for the big game. When the draw was made they had only one ticket between them and dad allowed Teapot to go. He took Teapot and a friend all the way to Wembley and then went to a relative who lived nearby to watch the game on TV.

AC thought this story of parental sacrifice was beyond what he could ever have managed in the same position and so great that it deserved the shirt.

Oh and by the way Burnley lost 3-1.