Headed into town to do some interviews for episode 3 of Objective and it's a shame we can't use them in their entirety because they were all pretty fascinating. My favourite one was with flag expert, Graham Bartram, who was not only very knowledgeable about the history of flags, but had also designed some himself. Not many of us create things that will still be used in hundreds of years time, but the chances are that at least some of Graham's flags will still be flying in future centuries. I asked him which flags he had designed and there were loads of them, including the one for Antartica,
which you can see here. I told him that that was rubbish and if I had designed that one I would have just made it completely white, to signify the snow there. He could literally have just handed them a blank piece of paper and then taken his payment. He thought that it might look as if Antarctica was constantly surrendering, but that would at least keep them safe from getting into any wars. A more pertinent argument might have been that a white flag on an entirely white continent would be hard to see. But Graham didn't think of that. Call himself a flag expert?
He had also redesigned the flag for the Falkland Islands, but I didn't like the sound of that one either. I said it would have been better if he'd given in an Argentinian flag with a big black cross through it. He didn't think the islanders would want an Argentinian flag, but I thought it was making a bold statement to any future invaders from that country that the islands were not theirs. Graham seemed to think that it was a good job that I wasn't in charge of making flags, but I disagree. If I have one mission on this earth, it is to get Graham's Falklands flag changed for mine. Even if I have to do it by creeping to all the flagpoles on the islands under the cloak of night and doing it myself. It would be great to have a flag that united the Falklands and Argentina in mutual hatred of me.
Graham took my stupidity pretty well, safe in the knowledge that the work he does will echo down the ages and so he will live on long after my best joke is forgotten.
We also chatted about the fact that the Americans have such strong love for their flag that seeing it burned makes them furious, but ironically if an American flag accidentally touches the floor it will have a funeral service in which it is cut up and then burned. Which seems worse than it just being burned. They are so patriotic that a violated flag (one that has some dust on it) will be both cut up and burned. But they hate it if someone else burns it up, even if they have been respectful enough not to cut it up first. The American idiots. It's just a flag!
I also had phone chats with Gary Bushell and Kate Fox, both who had interesting and differing things to say about why England doesn't celebrate St George's Day, but both made some excellent points. The English have a lot to be proud of, as Gary correctly believes, but we also have too good a sense of humour to take our selves seriously enough to take the patriotism thing too far. That's why we don't go crazy if someone burns our flag. And why even our military don't mind if the flag hits the floor. It's just a flag!
But clearly there is a lot of power behind these strips of cloth. I have plans to redesign the English flag too. We will see how that goes down!
I am looking forward to show 3 now, but still dreading the unthought of show 4, though I did have a great chat with a geneticist tonight, so have some thoughts about Dolly the Sheep (who is the subject of the final show).
The Hitler Moustache DVD is now available to preorder from Go Faster Stripe. This is the only place that you can get your hands on an exclusive extra extra disc with a video Collings and Herrin podcast and a reconstruction of my phone being stolen (starring Andrew Collings as "The Mugger"), a discussion about Logangate (the unrepresentative Guardian article), a documentary about my visit to York City FC, some backstage videos and much more. For a limited time you will also get a free stick on moustache.
If you wish you can buy an original show programme too, with 16 pages of extra stuff, for just £2 - all profits of which will go to SCOPE.
If you order now then Chris Evans (not that one) will send out the extras disc as soon as it is ready (probably on Wednesday) and then the official Hitler Moustache release (the full show, plus another 3 hours of extras) on October 25th.
This DVD is released under different circumstance than the usual go faster stripe ones. Although filmed by GFS (Go Faster Stripe), it is distributed by PIAS (which is why it is in the shops and Amazon etc), which means that GFS will only make money from the DVDs that you buy from them. They will use that money to fund the filming of other brilliant comedians. So not only are you getting loads more for your money, you will be supporting a brilliant enterprise, rather than giving cast to some bread-head who has millions of pounds already.
I am really excited about this release and I think this is my best show yet. So if you want to see it I hope you will buy if from Go Faster Stripe by
clicking here.
