Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

The joke goes something like:   Q) What is so great about Sweden? A) I don’t know but the flag is a big plus.   Gerrit? At first I laughed but then I realised that the same could be applied to the England flag. That’s a big red plus. Doing a modicum of research then revealed that the flags of Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Finland and Greece all feature a plus mark too. And thereby the novelty of the joke fades. Assessing these flags though, there are a few that wouldn’t technically fit the joke. Switzerland’s flag is a small plus. Greece’s flag is a small plus hemmed in by five blue lines or four white lines depending on which colour you think most dominates the space. They wouldn’t fit as replacements for Sweden in the joke. Denmark, Finland and Norway are all big pluses in the same way as Sweden but, let’s be honest here, are these actually plus signs? I would argue that they are crucifixes that have fallen to the left. The vertical line is not dead centre of...

  in its tiny global space surrounded by wet fueled by greed of the big boys as ordinary people need help support plagued by isms disparity of citizens law and order corrupt bottom heavy top light an anachronism of itself a whale floundering a ship grounding what glorious past? its young men conned time and again heroic lions dead driven to battle into slaughter no they did not stop they died instead what pride but what a price to pay for land grab by those who sat at long tables with strong liquor and fat cigars and yet those like them still rule our very existence so what prayer to say to a god that cannot hear what futile war will be next prayers won’t help they never help reality get a grip we do not want do not need any more

Afghanistan falls Lives destroyed and torn apart A sad, bleak future.