Flying the festival flag

If some cock is going to wave their ridiculously oversized flag in my face meaning I can see nothing but half of one screen during Placebo, at least make it worthwhile I say.

You have a Jamaican flag. Well, that's great. You're from Jamaica, are you? Lovely. Sometimes I wish I was from Jamaica.

I like a good home-made flag too. A white sheet with permanent marker declaring one of your mates to be a knob. Oh, the banter.

However, there is very little need for a skull and cross bones flag at Glastonbury Festival. Far be it from me to tell you that you can't bring your pirate flag to an event, but if I could at least impose some criteria. Answer these questions:

Are you a pirate?
Really?

If you answered 'Yes' to both questions then by all means, wave your flag. Otherwise, stick it up your hole and let me watch The Chemical Brothers in peace.



I've noticed more and more people attending festivals who fought in the American civil war, too. At least, I can only assume as much, given the confererate flags I see waving:



I mean, seriously, why would anyone hold that aloft? How can it be worth the huge effort required to hold a heavy flag pole in the air to show off an American battle flag from the 1860s? Am I missing something?

The worst of all, however, was spotted during The Verve at T In The Park 2008. While others waved Saltires, Lion Rampants and other flags with pride, some bright spark decided it was worthwhile holding up a black flag with a middle finger on it.

A sidewards middle finger:



What makes this flag so infuriatingly awful is not the absolute uselessness in holding up a cartoon drawing of a middle finger in a field full of strangers, or the fact that loads of ticket-buying punters are having their view blocked in the process - it's the fact that the flag isn't even fit for its purpose. Did the manufacturer honestly not notice that they'd made it to completely the wrong dimensions?

Unless someone in the 80,000-strong Verve crowd has their head at a bizarre 90 degree angle, I doubt you'll offend anyone with that.

Catch It, Bin It, Kill It...

We, the people of this great country, are certainly thinking more about where and how we sneeze in the wake of swine flu.

Just this week I've had a child use me as, basically, a big tissue. Without so much as a second's thought, he sneezed all over me and then went back to what he was doing without missing a beat. But hey, at least the germs weren't on his hand.

Of course, nothing beats the woman in Marks & Spencers who I saw pick up a sexy pair of knickers, take a wee look at them, suddenly sneeze all over them and then surreptitiously put the offending underpants back on the rack and walk away.

Nothing beats that, UNLESS you include the Tesco employee I saw sneezing in the fruit aisle. Not into his hand, not to the first thing he could conceal it with... but directly over the box of fresh tomatoes.

So, a successful campaign all round.