On Sun, 17 Aug 2008, John Rowland wrote:

I think they would be a lot more useful if they had little flags hanging
above them, giving an indication of which people might be interested in
them. For instance, not many Londoners would be interested in a plaque
about how the founder of Bolivia once lived in this house,

Well they should be, the ignorant oiks. That's history!

whereas Bolivian tourists would probably like to have it drawn to their
attention that of all the blue plaques in London, this is the one which
is of interest to them, so a little flagpole with a Bolivian flag above
the blue plaque would help everyone. I don't think it would spoil
conservation areas either.

I think that's quite a nice idea. You might want to subdivide further than
by country, though - if, say, 90% of plaques are about British people
(does that sounds plausible? where's that Jelf when you need him? JELF!),
then the national flag isn't providing a lot of information about those
ones. Maybe we could have further flags which indicate that the person was
an artist, engineer, politician, etc, or what century they were from.
Perhaps the maritime signal flags could be used for this; letters for
classifications, and numeral pennants for date (if the relevant year is
1xyy, fly pennant x; fly 0 for years before 1000, and, oh i don't know,
the answering pennant for dates after 1999).

tom

--
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people
maintaining a free civil government. -- Thomas Jefferson

Tom Anderson writes:
I think that's quite a nice idea. You might want to subdivide further than
by country, though - if, say, 90% of plaques are about British people ...
then the national flag isn't providing a lot of information about those
ones.

Ah, but the trick is to use the *correct* national flag. For Samuel Pepys,
the St. George's Cross; for Samuel Johnson, the Union Jack without the
red diagonal cross; for Samuel Palmer, the present version.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "He seems unable to win without the added
thrill of changing sides." -- Chess

My text in this article is in the public domain.

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008, Mark Brader wrote:

Tom Anderson writes:

I think that's quite a nice idea. You might want to subdivide further
than by country, though - if, say, 90% of plaques are about British
people ... then the national flag isn't providing a lot of information
about those ones.

Ah, but the trick is to use the *correct* national flag. For Samuel
Pepys, the St. George's Cross; for Samuel Johnson, the Union Jack
without the red diagonal cross; for Samuel Palmer, the present version.

Ingenious!

And for any Samuels born from about 2020 on, we can just use the EU flag,
right John?

tom

--
Suddenly, everything is clear ...

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:00:05 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008, Mark Brader wrote:

Tom Anderson writes:

I think that's quite a nice idea. You might want to subdivide further
than by country, though - if, say, 90% of plaques are about British
people ... then the national flag isn't providing a lot of information
about those ones.

Ah, but the trick is to use the *correct* national flag. For Samuel
Pepys, the St. George's Cross; for Samuel Johnson, the Union Jack
without the red diagonal cross; for Samuel Palmer, the present version.

Ingenious!

And for any Samuels born from about 2020 on, we can just use the EU flag,
right John?

Arguably 1987.

Mark Brader wrote:
Tom Anderson writes:
I think that's quite a nice idea. You might want to subdivide further than
by country, though - if, say, 90% of plaques are about British people ...
then the national flag isn't providing a lot of information about those
ones.

Ah, but the trick is to use the *correct* national flag. For Samuel Pepys,
the St. George's Cross; for Samuel Johnson, the Union Jack without the
red diagonal cross; for Samuel Palmer, the present version.

That could cause problems. For example, would you use pre- or post-
1800 Union Flag for Wellington? Then there are the really awkward
people like Alexander Graham Bell[1]. Would he have a Union Flag, a
defaced (Canadian) red ensign, or the Stars and Stripes (and in that
case, how many stars)?

Robin

R.C. Payne wrote:
Mark Brader wrote:
Tom Anderson writes:
I think that's quite a nice idea. You might want to subdivide
further than by country, though - if, say, 90% of plaques are about
British people ... then the national flag isn't providing a lot of
information about those ones.

Ah, but the trick is to use the *correct* national flag. For Samuel
Pepys, the St. George's Cross; for Samuel Johnson, the Union Jack
without the red diagonal cross; for Samuel Palmer, the present version.

That could cause problems. For example, would you use pre- or post-
1800 Union Flag for Wellington? Then there are the really awkward
people like Alexander Graham Bell[1]. Would he have a Union Flag, a
defaced (Canadian) red ensign, or the Stars and Stripes (and in that
case, how many stars)?

The flags are not for the deceased, they are for the tourists, so you would
use current flags only - this would be a necessity, since a lot of people
don't want to see Swastikas all over London, and a quarter of the world used
to have a Union Jack flying over it anyway. You would use
English/Welsh/Scottish/Norn Iron flags instead of Union flags, again
maximising usefulness to (British) tourists. It wouldn't have to be one flag
only.

On 19 Aug, 13:17, "John Rowland"
wrote:
The flags are not for the deceased, they are for the tourists, so you would
use current flags only - this would be a necessity, since a lot of people
don't want to see Swastikas all over London.

OTOH, Mr Barnbrook would probably be a keen supporter of the plan.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org