Flying the flag

I’m not sure when flags stopped being a sign of all things good, and started being the accessory du jour of nutters, like fascist skinheads and Geri Halliwell.


When I was a kid, flags were a good thing and were often accompanied by street parties, cup cakes, jelly and ice cream, meat paste sandwiches, those weird little sausages on cocktail sticks and something called the ‘Queens Jubblies’. Or that’s how it sounded when I was 4 years old anyhow.


They was also a strange group of people who used to plant miniature flags in white dog poo on our estate in Bradford. But maybe that was just a Yorkshire thing.


And then, slowly but surely, flags started shifting in my perception. First they were coveted by nationalists who, my dad told me, didn’t like people like Mr Singh in the shop at the end of our street. This was bad. Mr Singh always gave me tons of free sweets and he always had a nice turban.



Then (probably around the advent of CNN and satellite TV) flags became something that dark angry looking people in far off lands burned and stamped on. In later years I wondered if there was a chain of American flag makers in Bagdhad or Pakistan who got very rich in the 1990’s and retired recently, because you don’t see as much flag burning these days.



But every ones perception shifted. A few years ago when England was good enough to be in the world cup, people decorated the streets of Bedford with the cross of St George, but the council came and took them all down because they said it had ‘racist undertones’ and had upset the Muslim population in the area. I quoted them on this, they then retracted their statement and tried to say that I made the quote up. A slight that still rankles to this day as I prided myself on being quite an honest journalist.



I always thought it was quite sweet in Turkey that they have no shame in being proud of their flag. You can see it hanging everywhere. On special holidays all the skyscrapers in the business district unfurl massive 50 metre long Turkish flags from the side of their buildings. They are very proud of their flag. Turks do tend to have a massive inferiority complex here and so are very touchy about their national identity. You’ll always be treated with kindness and respect as long as you NEVER say anything bad about Ataturk or Turkey in general. One terrible time in 2000 when Leeds were playing Galatasaray here, some Leeds football hooligans decided to entice the Turkish to fight by setting fire to the Turkish flag and wiping their bums with it. Big mistake. Two fans got stabbed to death. I have looked in the press for evidence that these two murdered men were totally innocent and had done nothing wrong but could find naught.



A normal tabloid article would scream that these were ‘two innocent men who had no ties to violence of any sort and were in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ But the papers are strangely quite about their pasts and their connections. They just tell you that one of them was a father. The lack of outrage at their senseless murders could be telling. As is the fact that the Sun newspaper lost 3 million readers overnight and nearly went bust after printing that some Liverpool fans were responsible for the Hillsborough disaster. A faux pas from which it has never recovered and which no paper worth it’s shareholders would ever dare to repeat.



Of course I do not advocate murder. And stabbing anyone is clearly repugnant. But right now a flag is driving me to thinking about other forms of criminal behaviour. Such as vandalism and/or arson.



You know my lovely Bospherous view that I am so in love with? Behold. On Friday morning I woke up to an entirely different kind of vista as a 20 metre long Galatasaray flag was hung down the side of my building. At first I tried to be calm, after all it was a national holiday of sports and children on Monday. But it’s Tuesday and the flag shows no sign of being removed. Now I can only see the Bospherous if I go out on my balcony or stand at the top of my staircase. I was hoping that the fact that it completely obscured the views of 3 other flats might prompt enough complaints to see it removed quickly. But maybe the others like it there because still it flaps. In any case. I will be forced to make a complaint tomorrow to the traditionals (i.e. headscarfed family) two floors above who hung it out and whose view, I might add, is in no way hindered. I hope they do not know I am from Leeds and that I like Fenerbahce. Like I say, flags are usually coveted by nutters.





This weekend was fantastic. So there was a German, a Frenchman, an Englishman, an Australian and a Turkish dog and they all went to Assos, a lovely little town on the Aegean sea. There is no joke there. But we did have a great time. We didn’t do much except take long breakfasts, pootle about, and sunbathe. It was heaven.

Every morning we ate local cheese, olives and an egg dish called menemen and looked out from the terrace at the incredible views of the mountains and sea. I read two books. I also learnt that I cannot make a Turkish male do my bidding (even if he has 4 legs and fur). It was a constant 33 degrees. Summer has arrived. It seems set to be over 30 from here on in.



I finally found a Thai boxing class today and, joy of joys, the instructor speaks English. I start tomorrow. I will be the only female, which isn’t a huge surprise, but I do wonder how the macho Turks will take me. This is a great thing. I need evening sport otherwise I just sit watching the Bospherous, smoking fags, drinking wine and ship spotting. I guess the curtailment of my view spurred me on to get things done.

By the way this was my old view