things move around

In the hoist, a stylised winter-scene: five snowflakes tumble lazily through a blue boreal sky; the kind of scene one imagines Good King Wenceslas to have contemplated, on the feast of Stephen, as he reddened the stub of his post-prandial cigar. In the fly, a stylised representation of St Nicholas, winging his drunken way to the abode of the next cherubic tot on this year’s tip sheet. In the centre, a gambolling poodle, signifying that a pet is for life, not just for Christmas Island.

The origins of this flag are obscure. Most professional vexillologists agree that the depiction is of a muff dive, a cocktail supposedly first poured at the legendary Bar Buda, from which the nation gets half its name. Bar Buda is not to be confused with Buddha Bar. The garnish is a starfruit, symbolising the people’s idealism, fecundity and chronic cherry-allergy. The muff dive is rampant on a red field, denoting the warmth and passion for rumbuggery of the Antiguan people.

This theory is held in contempt by a vociferous minority of experts, who contend that the true meaning of the flag is revealed by rotating it 180 degrees. The result, they say, is a stylised spacecraft lifting off through a red mist of conflict to a better world in another star system: a world run by Antiguans and Barbudans, for Antiguans and Barbudans. The vessel’s blue paint job is well over a third done, attesting to the incredible work ethic of the people.

In recent years the flag, rotated through various angles, has been spotted in spatial reasoning tests administered by the HR departments of major accounting firms.

Psychologists want the flag of the Republic of Albania to remain a secret from the general public so that reactions will be spontaneous. It is hoped that these spontaneous reactions will yield valuable clues to the test subject’s personality. Whether they do remains controversial. Many psychologists think the Albanian flag is hopelessly unreliable; others see it as one of the cardinal tools of modern psychodiagnosis. Even among those who acknowledge the value of the flag, there is disagreement on interpretation of responses.

There are a few things that you, as a subject, are supposed to know and a lot of things you aren’t supposed to know. If you ask about something you’re not supposed to know, the psychologist will give you a pat answer as prescribed in Albanian vexilological literature. For example, if you ask if it is okay to turn the flag upside down, the psychologist will respond that you may do as you like; it’s up to you. The psychologist won’t say whether or not the flag is easier to interpret when turned; that most people do turn the flag; that he or she will make a notation with a little arrowhead every time you do turn the flag; and that you lose points in the initiative department if you don’t turn the flag.

What is the ‘correct’ response? It is important to see this flag as two human figures - usually females or clowns. If you don’t, it’s seen as a sign that you have trouble relating to people. You may give other responses as well, such as spermatazoa, ornate toothbrush holder, and pub sign in rural Wales. It is unwise to mention the obvious sexual imagery, and you don’t want non sequiturs, images that don’t fit with the judgment of the psychologist: describing something that isn’t immediately apparent, such as a double-headed eagle, may be taken as a sign of psychosis.

(with interpretative assistance from here).

Positioned vertically towards the fly is the “Straight Cadduceus,” the Staff of Knowledge which most certainly does not feature in any Greek myth. Nonetheless, a hint to alternative lifestyles is present in its topping of stylised marijuana leaves, used ceremonially by the natives of the British Indian Ocean Territories since they stopped being the Indian Ocean Territories and became the British Indian Ocean Territories. Towards the bottom (!) of the staff is a depiction of the national animal, the British Indian Ocean Territorial Octopus (Albionus Homoeroctopus), its lethal tentacles retracted to symbolise the natives’ love of peace. The undulating blue and white background symbolises nausea, while in the upper hoist is the emblem of an obscure North Atlantic Island, whose sailors once visited the place, and perished.

The blue, with a white triangle edged in red that is based on the outer side and extends to the hoist side, represents - you guessed it - the Pacific Ocean, fringed by an erubescent sunset. But read on, for the winged creature offers us a philological and cultural history lesson. When the island of Tutuila was first sighted by American troops stationed there in WWII, they enquired of the canoe-bound natives as to what it was called in the local tongue. “It’s a moa”, cried the islanders, following the G.I.s’ fingers to the flock of birds inking the horizon. “No.” replied staff-sergeant Herrin-Gaid, “It’s American’s a moa.” Thus was the dependency misnamed after a sorry subspecies, fuck-all to become of it thereafter.The mace and staff stand for valiance and fortitude.

Black, yellow and red; black, yellow and red. Needless to say, the Ugandan flag runneth over with symbolism. What else could black represent but the primary resource and number one entertainment of Uganda - charcoal briquettes. The yellow and red have a double meaning, on the one hand, they depict the flames of a well-stoked barbecue; on the other, the valour and cowardice of the Ugandan people. The whole is repeated with the aim of reducing forgeries. In the centre is superimposed an image of the You-Gander, the national bird, which is closely related to the Goose, but exists as a distinct, pure species only in the male form, reproducing as it does by inseminating unwary seahorses. In a departure from strict natural history, the You-Gander is depcited wearing a bishop’s hat, in an attempt to placate the vengeful God by whom this piss-poor country would appear to be governed.

The flag of Belize
would make a good frieze
for Mr Gay Central America day

circa ‘73:
the mahongany tree
is symbolic of homosexuality;

the two shapely men
clear-fell it, and then
drink rum, make a-love to sen’ritas. OK?

(The red and the blue,
though arresting, it’s true,
are meaningless, vexilologically.)

Martinique is unique in being the only Caribbean island except for the Grenadines to be named after an alcholoic beverage. The four white worms, rendered with the accuracy we have come to expect of Microsoft Paint, are an ancient symbol dating back to the early seventeenth century, when the island was a quarantine point for diseased mariners. Representing, clockwise from top left, typhus, scurvy, cholera and the pox, they are rampant on a background of light blue (signifying putrefaction) and quartered by a white cross. In days gone by, a scurvy sailor would be marked by his crewmates with a cross of guano on his face.

When Bengali East Pakistan seceded from West Pakistan in 1971, it chose for its flag a direct copy of the flag of Libya (see below). This was in response to the prevalence of Islam in the country, and was designed to isolate the Hindu minority. However, the official prototype of the Bangladeshi flag suffered an unfortunate mishap at the textile plant, where it had superimposed upon it the Hi-no-maru (Rising sun) of Japan. By an unfortunate coincidence, colour-blindness is congenital in the Bangladeshi people. For thirty three years, therefore, the nation of Bangladesh (current population 141m) has toiled in paddy fields, cane plantations and, latterly, call centres, under the misapprehension that their national flag is an even, unsullied green, while wondering at the smirks of the Libyan expatriates among them. No nation has the heart to disabuse the benighted Bangladeshis.

In the centre of the flag is a leprechaun, recumbent on a well-watered lawn, with a four-leafed clover in his hat - symbolic of the Libyan people’s good fortune and close kinship with the Irish Republic(an Army). The two diagonal green stripes, stretching from the lower hoist to the upper fly, and around which are coiled six tree snakes, are said to together represent the youth of the people, the bounty of the land, and national defence. In the upper hoist is an Arabic inscription, in green, which translates as “Death to the Infidel.” The whole is set on a background of green, the shade of which is the sole subject of the Libyan constitution. Anti-constitutional activities are punishable under Libyan law by live burial in a casket full of carnivorous frogs.