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Oh! The amazing power of the media...
Blaah! Let's not have any of this false modesty, I of course mean 'Oh! the amazing power of the me! Me!! ...and we can forget that superfluous "-dia"!
Why, it was only a year ago that I was on the air (as part of my continuing charity work helping to stamp out ethnodeficiency, that exclusively and typically English condition of having no discernible ethnic characteristics) and I was vigorously lamenting the virtual passing of St George and of his flag as patriotic symbols of England (not to mention the passing of that for which they stand). Wailing and loudly gnashing my teeth I was---about how, for example, a city council in the English Midlands that would (and in fact did) happily encourage Ahh! t'e flying of t'h flags and t'e wearin' o' t'e green and t'e trinkin' o' t'e Guinness sure and t'e bottom of t'e tankard to ye for St Patrick's Day would (and in fact did) a little over a month later forbid the very same treatment (and that was even without the Guinness) for St George on the grounds that St George's flags could distract drivers, fall off and hit cars or pedestrians and worst of all that it might well encourage others to follow suit! And about how indeed the showing of any flag that might possibly represent England or the English had become an embarrassment: St G's Red Crosse having been co-opted by the soccer hooligans and even the Union Flag stolen by the more virulent and violent extreme right (and anyway even if that flag hadn't been misappropriated it's totally inappropriate for us, as it's the flag of Britain as a whole and not of England, something as bad as say only representing Texas by the Stars and Stripes when other states can have their own flags.)
Well, what a difference a year, and a bit of metaphorical thrashing around on the carpet and breathholding-till-blue from me, makes.
The BBC put it best "St George's Day - an occasion which not too long ago could arguably pass by almost unnoticed - is now being celebrated on a far wider scale, according to groups promoting the day."
These groups, like the Royal Society of St George seem to have suddenly leaped to prominence in the last year. Now of course many of these sanctugeorgian societies were around last year (the RSSG itself since 1894, with antecedents stretching back to the 1770s and, by one of those weird chance concatenations of this sublunary sphere, to New York City of all places!)
And now suddenly, and since [Ahem] my little mention on air a year ago, St G and his day are all the rage, and the media [Ahem] following me has turned its beady spotlight on the subject.
Even business has noticed how St Pat has promoted the sales of green beer and that there may be similar millions to be made from St G (though I suspect that red and white beer might not have as much customer appeal and indeed have more of and 'ick-factor').
There is even talk of having a St G Day bankholiday, though the year is a bit crowded with them around then; and you'd probably have to give bloody Saints Andrew, David and Patrick bankholidays too, and that would leave us precious few days when we could go to work, but at least I have righted a great wrong.
Now my final task will be to combat the horrifying cause that lies beneath these erstwhile problems of St G, the underlying curse of ethnodeficiency---[sigh!] and there I've really got my work cut out.
But that's for the future: so to look on the bright side for now you see how important it is to do as I did last year and stand up and be counted even if there is only one of you, 'cause most people can count that high
Cheerio for now
from Richard Howland-Bolton.
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Notes:
And I may be succeding even at de-ethnodeficiencizing because I just found this!
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