St George slaying the dragon

I wouldn’t normally post on successive days, but consider this brief piece as being like one of YouTube’s ‘shorts.’ I thought I’d honour our national saint, St George, who, as this Wikipedia piece shows, England shares with a number of other countries. But he’s the only one we have and 23 April is his day here. It is also, coincidentally, both the birth and death date of the finest playwright the world has ever known – Bill the Bard (1564 to 1616). The day isn’t marked as an official holiday here – we have relatively few of those – but it is still a part of English history that we grow up learning about in school. The day has declined in importance over the centuries, but is still marked in many English towns and cities, albeit with celebrations which are fairly understated – in the true tradition of our country!

We have our own flag

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which you may well recognise as being part of the Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom, of which England is a part. That may come as a surprise to some American readers, who refer to “England” when they actually mean the whole Union, but I’m not going to give you a lecture on it! I’ve recently heard your esteemed President use the wrong name, but as he knows everything who am I to correct him?

The point of this post – yes, there is one – is to show that there are dangers in being too attached to flags and symbols. That English flag – based on the St George’s Cross – has become associated with English football hooligans wearing it as some kind of debauched badge of honour, and is also adopted by far right political movements, who stand for anything other than the true values of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom (another history lesson needed outside these shores?). It has taken one of my favourite folk rock bands to come up with an anthem for our times, which I think speaks volumes for what is both right and wrong about our country, so I’m playing that today. This is Merry Hell, with Come On, England:

England’s traditional values need to be respected and preserved, and the worse aspects of society need to be quietened. I can’t think of a better way of saying that other than with this song. The populists may try to lay claim to being the rightful proponents of those traditions, but they are anything but that. And they probably don’t know that St George was born in what is nowadays part of Eastern Turkey, which I find amusing: he’s one of those immigrants they hate so much!

Countries around the world have fallen victim to populist movements over the past decade or two: today in England it is a day to reflect on that and stand up for our real values.