A flag lesson for all

For those who aren't aware, the Olympic torch has been making it's way through the UK the past two weeks. They have a live "torch cam" on the BBC where you can watch (www.bbc.co.uk/torchrelay) the events and let me tell you it's hard to stop watching once you've started! Last week it went through my village of Fernhill Heath and into Worcester where there were 60000 people on the streets celebrating and watching. Keep in mind that the population of Worcester is on 95000!!

Anyway, whilst watching the torch it's been great to see everyone waving the Union jack and being proud to be British. I have however noticed several occasions where the Union jack has been attached to houses etc. and it has been upside down. This is not good. Could you imagine if people flew the American flag upside down??

Many of you might think that the Union jack is symmetrical but it isn't. Here's a great illustration of how it should look:

Notice the thickness of the white stripes above and below the red in the upper left corner - the thickest white strip should always be at the top. Perhaps it was all those years of being in Scouts that has made me very picky about this!

CORRECT

INCORRECT

Can you see the difference?!? Look for it next time you see the flag!


A little trivia:

The Union jack is actually a combination of three flags: England (St. George's cross), Northern Ireland (St. Patrick's cross) and Scotland (St. Andrew's cross). The Welsh dragon was not incorporated into the Union jack because Wales had already been united to England when the first version of the Union Flag was designed in 1606.