Friesen’s Top Five List #10: World Flags

Well, Nicky Gifts is back to his old tricks today, or at least he thinks he is.  He must have seen the glee with which I made yesterday’s list on Movies Starring Rappers and he just couldn’t take it.  He had to slow my roll, bring me down to earth.  Thus, he assigned me to write a top five list today about World Flags.

I say that he only thinks he’s up to his old tricks because there’s something old Mr. Gifts isn’t taking into consideration, namely that I know a lot about World Flags.  I mean, I took a Geography class in high school that was taught by the lacrosse coach; give me a little credit.  Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourself for the most informative and educational top five list ever written.  It’s the Top Five World Flags: let’s get it on.

5) Iraq

I know we’re at war in Iraq, and some may see it as poor form to include them on this list.  Not me.  I think this flag is very aesthetically pleasing, that the colors go well together.  I have to hand it to the Iraqi people for having a flag that is one third black, that’s a really brave decision.  An even braver decision, in my opinion, is putting the state motto “Sand Is Not Food” in the center in Arabic.

4) Saint Martin

Speaking of brave, Saint Martin may have the most daring, brash flag in the world.  It is certainly the only flag in the world that features an alcoholic beverage.  In 1643, the duke of Saint Martin, Pierre de Poisson, was sitting in his study sipping on his favorite drink: gin, straight up.  After having a few too many, he realized that he was running dangerously low on gin, and that his wife wouldn’t be going to the market for at least three days.  He flew into a panic, and proceeded to scour the house for any other booze to drink.  Much to his chagrin, he could only find bottles upon bottles of vermouth, a gift from a recent emissary from Italy.  “Alright.  I’ll suffer through this vermouth, then when I’m out, I’ll go back to the gin,” he thought to himself, not realizing exactly how hard it would be to drink straight vermouth.  His throat burned like the sand on his fair country’s beaches at high noon, and it became instantly clear that his plan was flawed.  But the thing about Pierre de Poisson that makes him historically significant is that he was no quitter.  Though the first swig was brutal, he took seven more before remembering the old Saint Martin state motto: “Necessity is the Mother of Invention.”  It was necessary that he not drink anymore straight vermouth ever again, thus, the time had come to invent.  He mixed the vermouth with what was left of his gin, and found that it tasted quite good.  Realizing that he was onto something big, he built a secret laboratory under his home, and commanded his wife to bring him more gin, straightaway.  He spent five years ensconced in that lab, working to get the recipe just right.  People knew he was up to something, but they had no idea it was something so big.  In December, 1648, Pierre threw open the doors of his lab, revealing to the world the first ever martini.  But that wasn’t the half of it.  Pierre had gotten amazingly creative in his solitude, inventing a total of six drinks: the martini, the dirty martini, the pickletini, the appletini, the tomatini, and the smegmatini.  Historians agree that, though five of his drinks have survived over three hundred and fifty years of scrutiny, the sixth was a serious misstep.  All this is common knowledge to anyone with any experience in mixology history, but the truth is that this story is far deeper than mixology mainstream cares to admit.  The truth is that Pierre de Poisson was attempting to make a native currency for the people of Saint Martin, but in his drunken state, could only think of booze.  If you visit Saint Martin today, you can still hear local merchants joke to their customers “that’ll cost you six martinis,” recalling a forgotten piece of local history.

3) Gibraltar

To the south of Spain, Gibraltar is, and always has been, a shipping capital of the world.  Serving as the only way in or out of the Mediterranean Sea, Gibraltar was a major stop for anyone hoping to ship goods to Asia or Southern Europe.  Like all nations who depend heavily on the shipping and port economy, Gibraltar boasted a very diverse population, full of salty characters that worked the docks.  The other thing that sets Gibraltar apart is the prevalence of curious castles with disproportionately huge doors that literally litter the countryside, the presence of which has puzzled historians for centuries.  The historical tale I’m about to tell is known only to a select, privileged few, a group of which you will soon be a member.

The people of Gibraltar are a remarkable people, but if there is one thing that connects them all, it’s that they are horribly forgetful.  Walking around the city, people locked out of their houses were a more common sight than stray cats, which (take my word on this) were all over the place.  In an attempt to alleviate the public’s woes, Archduke Pete made a decree that it would henceforth be required by law for all citizens to wear their house keys on a necklace, that they might never forget them again.  Immediately, things changed and stray cats took back the streets.  However, there were unintended consequences of this decree that the Archduke could never have foreseen.  Since everyone was required to wear their keys, they became a bit of a status symbol.  The richer members of society had bigger keys to fit the bigger keyholes of their grand mansions, while the poor had miniscule keys.  Civil strife began to grow, and the “have-nots” began to resent the “haves.”  The lower class came to realize that though they could never afford a giant castle, they could afford to put a bigger door on their small home, and people would do just that.  It was an all out war, with everyone trying to outdo each other in a shameful pissing contest, trying to validate their self-worth in this disingenuous display of wealth.  To confuse matters even more, in 1302, a very clever peasant named James Blunt (no relation to the “You’re Beautiful” singer) realized that he could just make a massive fake key to wear around his neck; that it didn’t have to actually fit in any keyhole.  He could even make multiple keys!  The people of Gibraltar all assumed that he must be massively wealthy if he could afford numerous keys of such great size, and he experienced an immediate and dramatic social jump.  He was the talk of the town, the apple of every girl’s eye and the envy of every man.  At least he was until Archduke Pete decided that the situation was a little fishy.  He confronted James Blunt at his home on April 20, 1304, demanding that he use the key around his neck to open his front door.  When he could not, the Archduke had him arrested for fraud and perverting the social system of noble Gibraltar.  In a charade of a trial, James Blunt was sentenced to die by drinking hemlock.  Archduke Pete was pleased with the sentence, but had no idea that he had inadvertently created a martyr, a folk hero.  Slowly, a grassroots movement began among the populace of Gibraltar.  The peasants were tired of Archduke Pete’s oppressive ruling style, and began a symbolic revolt by wearing comically large keys around their necks.  The Archduke was incensed, and began a genuine civil war against the people of Gibraltar, which turned out to be his undoing.  The people rose up against him, using whatever makeshift weapons they could make, eventually overthrowing him and force-feeding him hemlock.  In time, the comically oversized necklace became a symbol of the people’s power to stand up to oppressive power.  The lasting remnant of this can be seen in modern hip-hop culture.

2) United States of America

What list of the greatest flags would be complete without the fucking Stars and Bars?  None.  The fourth of July is coming up, and I will be celebrating by getting drunk at 10 AM, streaking while draped in the American flag, then try to put out Nicky Gifts’eye with a bottle rocket.

1) British Overseas Territories

As if there was ever any doubt.  Typically, flags are made to symbolize the majesty of a country.  They showcase the national colors, and often contain traditionally important images.  Britain did something revolutionary when they created flags for their overseas territories.

Each of the flags of the territories contains a Union Jack in the upper left-hand corner, and typically features a blue background, though sometimes the background is red.  What’s revolutionary about their flag system is that on the right-hand side of the flag, the British included a little symbol to warn British travelers about what they would find should they travel to the overseas territories.  Let’s look at a few examples.

This is the flag of the British Virgin Islands.  The crest on the side features a virginal woman carrying a lantern, surrounded by 11 other lanterns.  The latin word “vigilate,” which translates to “beware,” is under the picture.  In the Virgin Islands, there is a shrine to Vesta, goddess of the hearth, which contains an undying flame that is maintained by the Vestal Virgins.  There is a great need for women to remain virginal, so they could work at the temple, thus, a system was put in place to shame women who had sex before marriage.  A series of underground tunnels was constructed that contained 11 “chambers of suffering,” through all of which the soiled women had to make it alive in order to re-earn their purity.  The flag serves as a warning to visiting women, tantamount to telling them, “have sex at the risk of facing the 11 Chambers of Suffering.”

This is the flag of Anguilla.  The explorers who found the island discovered off the shore a race of homosexual dolphins, engaged in a perpetual daisy chain of pure lust.  They were unsure whether it was an interest to the scientific community or a tourist attraction, so they decided to let viewers of the flag decide for themselves.

This is the flag of Bermuda.  Explorers expected to find an island paradise, endless beaches and hot bronze natives.  Instead, they found a reasonably friendly, but boastful dragon who would walk around bragging about the boats he had sunk in the past.  The natives didn’t know what a boat was, so he drew a picture of a ship sinking to illustrate his point.  He promised not to sink the explorer’s ship when they left the island, on the condition that they memorialize him on their flag.  As a jab at his boastful nature, the explorers made a crest featuring their dragon friend showing off the picture of his “finest moment.”

Finally, this is the flag of Tristan da Cunha.  Upon their arrival, British explorers were greeted by a remarkably complicated civilization populated by very militaristic rock lobsters.  The exact nature of their political and social structure has been lost to history, mostly due to the mysterious deaths of all but one of the intrepid explorers.  The one survivor, Upton H. Pennyworth, told wild tales of violent lobsters and their vicious seagull minions, and was promptly laughed out of respectable society and into a hermit-like existence.  In an impassioned speech before Parliament, he spoke these words: “laugh at me if you must, but know that I tell no tall tales.  I have seen the face of terror and it has beady little eyes and ten legs.  All who venture to this damned island shall surely perish, so I beseech you, post a warning true, that no one will again face the horror I have seen.”  Parliament was unmoved by his words and created the flag of Tristan da Cunha as a testament to his insanity.