Saturday is Armed Forces Day.  Its OK to have not heard of it because this year is the first one.

The official Armed Forces Day flag is flying outside my workplace at the moment, and I was genuinely surprised by it because it is the top half of our national flag, with the caption under it.   The surprise is because we get so stuffy about the flag I am amazed you are allowed to make another flag out of part of it – just remember the faux outrage when some summit or other had the little flag on the table upside down.

As an aside, it is our own stupid fault for having a flag that is not symmetrical.  How on earth do you design a flag that is essentially several crosses superimposed and end up with something asymmetrical?   And another thing: why not make its official name the Union Jack since that is what everyone calls it anyway?  It would take away the enjoyment from a few antiquated pedants, but make life easier for the other 99.999% of the population.

Another thing our company is doing is that they have declared tomorrow ‘wear your uniform to work day’.  The idea is that anybody who is in a cadet force, the Territorials or is a reservist should wear their uniform to work, while the rest of us dress down as normal.  That will be interesting.   I have no idea how many territorials and reservists we have at work.  Will there be hundreds of uniforms about or just a few?

I like the idea of Armed Forces Day.  It looks like it is avoiding the trap of becoming a celebration of war, and I hope it does establish itself as a way to show support for the armed forces generally.