Society

Flagged up The Finnish air force announced that it is to remove the swastika from its flag (which was designed in 1918) to avoid awkward encounters with foreign dignitaries. Some other unlikely places you can – or could – see a swastika without any links to Nazism: – Christian catacombs in Rome. – Above the doorway to Chelmsford town hall (built 1928-39). – Above a doorway at the Foreign Office. – On a plaque at India House. – On the floor at Upminster Bridge Tube station (opened early 1930s). – On the floor at the former NatWest branch in Derby Street, Bolton. – On early editions by Rudyard Kipling. A

The education system may produce ignoramuses (my daughter finished school in June, never having been taught a thing about Napoleon, the French Revolution, Julius Caesar, the Industrial Revolution, or any basic geography), but there was solace out there for the unlearned and undereducated: they could always listen to In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg’s radio exploration of fabulously random assorted subjects with three (formerly two) specialists in the field. Bragg has announced today he is stepping down from the show, which he has hosted since it was created in 1998. In Our Time might nowadays be considered highbrow, but it’s not really; it’s just a civilised discussion on the subjects that

Something odd happened before I even boarded the flight in Arizona. When I handed over my passport at the gate, the official told me I didn’t have a seat and had to be re-ticketed. At the time, I thought it was just the sort of innocent snafu that makes air travel such a joy. But in hindsight, it was clear I’d been flagged. Someone, somewhere, probably wearing unconvincing make-up and his sister/wife’s/mum’s underwear, had made a phone call. The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two – five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I

A few days ago a pedicab (or rickshaw), decked out in luminous pink, collided with a red London bus in the early hours of the morning. Three people were hurt, two seriously. I won’t delve into the rights and wrongs of what happened; you can see a partial video on social media and there are reports the pedicab was stolen. This is not about one particular accident but about the perils on the streets of London and other cities, occasioned by wildly incompatible vehicles competing for space, by ever more reckless riders and drivers, but above all by the disgraceful and potentially lethal lack of interest shown by the authorities

For a Brit in America, flag-flying feels so overdone, almost cultish. Why do Americans fly their flag on houses, lawns, even on their lapels? An American friend once gave me a running vest – the garment that over there they call a wifebeater – emblazoned with ‘US Army’. A British veteran I ran with raised an eyebrow. ‘Only Americans,’ he said, ‘need clothes to remind them which army they’re in.’ The recent sudden spread of English flags has caused alarm. They are ‘symbols of prejudice, not pride,’ says the Guardian, and good news for ‘the hard right’. The BBC suggested to Andy Burnham that flying the English flag was ‘contentious’. ‘You