NEW NEW ZEALAND FLAG

A national flag should be simple, it should have a bold design that is instantly recognised, even at at a distance, and it should say 'this is what we are.'

New Zealand is a long narrow country between two seas; its Maori name is Aotearoa, which means Land of the Long White Cloud; it is the home of a people who are known the world over as Kiwis, after their unique native bird; our head of state is the Queen, who uses royal blue.

This design for a flag combines all those elements.

Tasman Sea    Aotearoa/Land of the Long White Cloud   Pacific Ocean

It keeps a connection with the present flag by using the same deep blue, but here it represents the Tasman Sea on one side of the country and the Pacific on the other. In the centre the white panel represents Aotearoa, the Land of the Long White Cloud, and the green kiwi combines our national symbol--long known the world over--with the green that New Zealand is also famous for.

The kiwi could be less stylised than the one shown here, such as the one that has long been used in the roundels on RNZAF aircraft.

ROUNDUP OF THE ANEMONES

Once upon a time there was a wonderful man called Marty. His full name was Marty Awe Tia, and he was well-named, because all the good folk were in awe of how wonderful he was and how much he liked people and how much good he did for them all day and every day.

But, sadly, Marty had anemones. Whoops! Hang on--enemies, which is not a nice flower at all. It is a sad fact of life that even the nicest people get them horrid enemy thingies, plus all the lies and nonsense and nasty attacks filled with loathing that go with that getting.

The anemones that loathed Marty Awe Tia had some very weird pinions. For example, they opined that anyone who loves something because it is beautiful is just an emotional prat. Which means that wot they really think is that we have to chuck love out of the windbag to make a good decision. Obviously, there's no weirder pinion than that known to science or anybody. No one can stand up straight on pinions like that.

But even that weirdness was not enough for Marty Awe Tia's anemones. They loathed him so much that they made up a cunning plan to stretch him something terrible, fill him with concete, and turn him into an oogly place for parking rich guys' boats, thereby making lots luvvly moolah and the anemones filthy rich.

Fortunately, all Marty Awe Tia's friends got together to buy a humungous amount of Roundup to spray on the anemones and thus save him from being transmogrified into a monstrosity of the moolah-and-concrete kind.

Yay!

We hope.