Paul Ricketts - Kiss the Badge, Fly the Flag!

Have you noticed how rarely the English fly their national flag? Paul Ricketts certainly noticed and, via this weird and wonderful, almost anthropological lecture, he shows the funny side of that very English loathing of any expression of nationalism unless there is international football on the agenda.

He explains his own background first of all: a black Briton from Luton who lives in Barking, home of the BNP. Rather than sidetrack us with the racists, he instead turned to the kids of immigrants in the area and asked them how English they feel. The videoed responses are as eye-opening as they are funny – suffice to say that they’re 100% English to the point of feeling iffy about taking an England football shirt home.

And so Ricketts, intrigued, sets off around the country looking at attitudes to the flag of St George uncovering the expected variety of local life but always encountering the same seasonal love of England.

He meets the proud football supporters who will support anyone but Engerland, he dresses up as a clownish St George on the saint’s day and videos the local kids’ reactions, misses the BNP councillor in armour but ends up chatting to Billy Bragg instead and getting his picture in the Sunday Sport.

Like a David Attenborough of comedy, Ricketts stalks his subjects yet never intrudes, always allowing their natural behaviour in their natural habitat to be observed with objectivity. This being England, that behaviour is decidedly oddball and, like Attenborough, Ricketts should be given his own TV show to further explore.