Flying the Fern Flag

John Ansell and Kenneth Wang are thinking big. They want to fly the silver fern flag over the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day.

And when I say “fly” and “over” I mean it literally. They want to have a chopper fly it over the bridge. Now of course a normal sized flag is hard to see up in the air, so their flag will be 10,000 square feet in size.

However making and flying a flag costs money – $20,000 in fact. But for those who want to change the flag, it is a great promotion and will get great media attention. So if you are willing to contribute towards the cost, email john@johnansell.co.nz.

And if you have a preference, for which fern design gets flown, if enough money is raised (pledges will be returned if not enough is raised), feel free to comment on John’s blog.

UPDATE:

Who knows what this is?Answer over the page.

This awful flag was the Canadian flag before they ditched it for the maple leaf flag. Hopefully we’ll look back one day also, and wonder why it took so long to swap, and why didn’t we do it earlier.

Incidentially, John A says that the maple leaf design at the time was criticised thus:

There is no recognition of history; no indication of the existence of French and English Canada; the partnership of the races; no acknowledgement of history. It is a flag without a past, without history, without honour and without pride.

A flag should not be a history book or an essay. It should be a symbol. A fern flag would one day I am sure become as iconic as the Canadian maple leaf flag has become.