Random Flags at London

ICV 27 - Speaker 9: John Cartledge

 

Cartledge presented an overview on the particular attachments to the colour red.  Often described as passionate colour of life and blood, Cartledge gave a brilliant and often amusing battery of red's symbolism.  No doubt the associations are red are established deep in the collective mind as a leading brilliant colour that can easily catch ones attention.

ICV 27 - Speaker 8: Sekhar Chakrabarti

Variant of Dominant Political Party Flag as National Flag: Confusions and Controversies - a Case Study was title of Chakrabarti's paper.  Chakrabarti gave us a deeper story unto the unfolding of the national flag for India, which took many turns and twists before arriving at the modern day flag that we know today. 

ICV 27 - Speaker 7: Victor Lomantsov

Victor Lomantsov's paper was entitled Flags of Trade-Unions' Sport Societies in the USSR.  Although the Soviet Union was known for its big red flag, there was still a need to play sports.  Lomantsov gave us a general overview of the varied and colourful, and often non-communist, flags of the sports clubs in the Soviet Union.

ICV 27 - Speaker 6: Pierre-Jean Guionin

Pierre-Jean Guionin's paper was entitled The New Edition of Album des Pavillons et des Marques Distinctives.  Guionin gave his presentation mostly in French.  Guionin discussed the ins and outs of editing the important work for France's Department of Oceanography.  

ICV 27 - Speaker 5: Christopher Maddish

The title of the paper was Colour Coding and New Vexillological Avenues for Flag Design.  The framework for colour coding flags to numbers was presented.  Examples were given several areas including: longitude and latitude, altitude, chemistry, and even postal zones.  In the second part of the lecture other un-flagged areas were presented: geographic birthright flags, maritime flags areas without a flag, and many more.  

ICV 27 Speaker 4: Kevin Harrington

Kevin Harrington's paper was entitled Flags and the Anniversaries of 2017: Myths, Mistakes, Misconceptions.  Harrington spoke briefly about flags that were changed due to the Socialist Red Scare, namely of the old red Oklahoma flag and a few others.  Harrington also gave an enchanting retelling of his youthful excitement in 1965 when the current Canadian flag was adopted, which he instantly loved. 

Harrington proposed that the some Canadian flags with the red and blue ensign may have never existed, and only came into existence due to assumptions and errors.   Essentially the Admiralty was making mistakes and assumptions, based upon the hypotheticals.  As of yet there is no direct evidence that some flags existed.  Perhaps the flags were proposed, but none were created to fly on a flag pole? 

Much of flag history comes about though the official publications of government issued Naval Communications and Flag Authority books.  In this case, the Admiralty of the UK were responsible for organizing, cataloging and charting proper use of flags for use at sea.  They were never intended to be a target of vexillological or academic use, but they have become trustworthy sources for researching flags.