h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm sorry, I'm still having a wee bitty problem about this flag colour business. I live round the corner from the place in Scotland where the 'flag' first appeared (http://www.scran.ac.uk/St.Andrew/trust.htm lived in St Andrews itself for years, and have not heard this particular variant - can someone give me a credible link please?

The blue colour has even been discussed in the Parliament!
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/official_report/wa-00/wa0523.htm#6886

Ooops, didn't see you there Teasswill!

New piccy of the kitten btw at : http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/bc/cloviscatscout/vwp?.dir=/Family&.src=ph&.dnm=Elspeth+at+21+weeks.jpg&.view=t&.done=http%3a//uk.photos.yahoo.com/bc/cloviscatscout/lst%3f%26.dir=/Family%26.src=ph%26.view=t

Must say, I don't really mind what colour the flag should be - in fact I'm now rather fond of the image of Mel Gibson with pink cheeks!

Damn, typed out a long post then my system crashed and I lost it. It went something like:

Hi Cloviscat,

A 'saltire' is a flag with a diagonal cross, so there are many different ones. For evidence that Scotland's flag used to be a white-on-pink saltire, you can look at:

http://www.scotsgay.co.uk/text/sg33.txt gives specific examples of existing historical documents that show the pink saltire.

http://www.saltire-society.demon.co.uk/history.htm (the Saltire Society, no less) dates the first known flag to 1503 and the blue version to 1540. The legend regarding clouds in the sky also dates from around this time.

First time round I went on a bit about how St Andrew (who lived in 1st century Palestine and had therefore presumably never even heard of Scotland, much less visited it) ended up as Scottish patron saint, but I don't have the time to type it all out again and it was poorly researched (i.e. from memory) anyway.

Gif

Gif

So St Andrew and St George never came to Britain?

At least St Patrick actually visited Ireland, even if he came from Northern England.

I thought he (Patrick) was Welsh. He certainly wasn't Irish (he introduced Christianity to Ireland because he'd been brought up in a Christian country, i.e. outside Ireland). Don't know what St George did, or where St David came from. Or how long St. George's Cross or Draig Goch have been flags, or what, if anything, they replaced.

Any Saints experts out there? (There was a fascinating radio program by Ian Hislop on UK Patron Saints, but I only caught the St Andrew one, hence my sudden lack of knowledge about the other saints.)

Gif

Thanks Gnomon for the interesting links. I'm sorry f my email didn't go into much detail - when I said 'saltire' I meant 'the Saltire' by which, being in Scotland, I meant the St Andrews flag! (do you know where the name 'Saltire' comes frombtw? I'm sure you do, but it amuses me, and the picture of the seal on the Saltire Soc page reminded me, so I'll tell it again - it comes from the word to jump (as in the french sauter) because it looks like St Andrew is jumping in the air on those early pictures! )

Still prefer pink to red, btw....

Giford, I ddon't have time to go off and do the research right now, but what we call the St Georges flag, (argent, a cross gules) has been used for a lonng time as a symbol for Xian sacrifice, is often seen in churches held by the lamb of God (not just English churches!) and was used by the Crusaders, but I'm sure someone with more time can do it more justice.

everyone

How come I get credit for the questions but not the links?

And after I signed it twice, too

Gif

Ooops

as you may have guessed from the quality of my recent postings, I was and am, a little distracted: screaming baby and the aftermath of food poisoning do n't make for coherent composition....