4 things

 

4 images that I have been really drawn to of late. Firstly a lovely colour page from my excellent book 'The Lore of Ships' -  the flags make me want to write out mantras to live by in a sort of drape-y semaphore as a hanging soft sculpture. A wonderful knotted sponge-like form, created by Jens Risch, twisting and contorting upon itself in painful confusion. TV series 'Psych' parody Twin Peaks, and include many of the original cast. Here Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer) and Lenny Von Dohlen (Harold Smith) discover the body of 'Paula Merrel' "wrapped in plastic". And fourthly, a very large palette with (in hindsight) a rather Audrey-ish looking girl) found in the wonderful image archive that is Old Chum.

Notes on a Scandal

 Crowd scenes from Malmö Stadion, where the game was held and eventually called off due to hooliganism.

Yesterday's 'derby' was the show-down between the two rival footballing cities of Skåne, Helsingborg and Malmö, whose teams (HIF and MFF) are also sitting first and second  respectively, on the Allsvenskan points table. Every time these rivals rendezvous the police are out in force on horseback on the streets, cautiously eyeing up raucous revellers. Chartered buses roll in from out of town, and patrol cars cordon off roads around the train stations to direct the flow of human traffic alighting from them, mingling with the sky-blue clad Malmö supporters wandering around the streets drinking cheap beer, letting off flares and chanting incomprehensibly.

The match was aborted after thirty minutes of play; after HIF scored a goal, enraged Malmö supporters pelted the Helsingborg goalie with firecrackers and one crazed fan brazenly burst onto the pitch to attack the goal keeper head-on. The man was carried by police, pall-bearer style, off the pitch and play abandoned.

The match is being referred to in Swedish press as 'The Scandal Match' and the HIF goalie keeps stating he is 'very shocked'.


Photographs via Sydsvenskan

Flag it

New Zealand is having another identity crisis fuelled by theNew Zealand Herald, and now we are thinking of getting a new flag. Perhaps instead of getting the idiotic public to design their own flags using MS Paint, we should just adopt a flag from a country which no longer exists. Here are some excellent examples from the Wikipedia category "Obsolete national flags".

Flag of the Khanate of Khiva 1511-1917. Pale blue crescent moon on white background.

The Royal flag of the Jaffna Kingdom. A couchant bull and the surrounding sun and the moon, and a parasol.

The flag and coat of arms of Moldavia, depicting an aurochs/wisent head.