Landed back in the UK last Saturday and stayed overnight with friends in Leeds.
On the morn, tooled off to the nearest Tesco to fuel up for the drive North. Nipped into said Tesco to buy a pint of milk.
Now, I had not realised this before, but there is, apparently, some sort of football competition about to start somewhere. It would seem that England are playing in it. Wall to wall flags of St George everywhere.
This is, of course, a ‘good thing’. The last time England won the World Cup was, I believe, some time back in the 1960’s. I can’t remember exactly when and they hardly ever show it on national television so I can’t be sure but I seem to recall that Wembley Stadium was awash with Union flags that time. Good to see England are getting it right this time.
Anyhow, I bought my pint glass with the cross of St George thereon and am looking forward to taking it to the bowling club when I go down there to cheer on England in their group games. I am sure that I will be really popular with my fellow Jocks when I produce it.
After I got home, I thought it might be a good idea to get another one, just in case the first one met with an an unfortunate accident, so I nipped into the South Queensferry Tesco. For some reason, they don’t seem to be stocking them or anything else with an English theme, for that matter.
Not to worry. I nipped off to Ocean Terminal and got a picture that can remind us all of our shared British heritage. I’ve been trying for it for a couple of months, but every time I’ve gone, there’s been a dredger or a Frog destroyer or some other ship in the way. Finally got a clear shot of ‘Britannia’.
Now, I realise that not all of us are ardent monarchists but she does it for me every time I see her. My family used to go to the Isle of Seill (site of the bridge over the Atlantic) on the West Coast of Scotland for the summer holidays and I can remember waving frantically at ‘Britannia’ and the Royal Family as they sailed by. Having done the tour of her several times, there is no doubt in my mind that she was a family home for Liz, Phil and the kids.
The picture was taken from the car park of a supermarket. As I walked back to my car, I saw this sign.
Many of you may well be familiar with this sort of technological gimmickry but it was the first time I had ever come across it. I naturally sat in my car and waited for somebody to try to push a trolley past the line so that I could see what happened.
Eventually I gave up and strolled across to the nearest trolley park in a nonchalant sort of sidle. There was a guy collecting trolleys and just as I was summoning up the courage to take an empty one for experimental purposes, he said:-
‘You realise that we have CCTV? You would be amazed at the fun we have watching people trying it to see if it works.’
I made an excuse and left.
C’mon England.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Nice pic’s and an entertaining post John.
Cheers
It does work, actually. They have had that in the USA for some time. When I lived in Hawai’i the car park by grocer’s was perhaps half as large as it should have been and we often had to park in another car park in the vicinity. In order to get everything into the car we took the trolley as far as we could before carrying it the rest of the way.
Good pictures, John.
I must say, it has been a pleasant surprise to see the St George Cross everywhere. I’m going to smuggle one back to Oz so that I can display it later this year when that funny game called cricket is being played…. 🙂
JM, you can kick and scream and shout foul as loud as you like, but Igerlund will win its independence soon and the union flag will be a gonner. 😉 Welcome back!
Lovely post John and super photos, thanks for sharing them.
You’re lucky you saw the sign, JM. We didn’t and of course ended up with a wheel-locked trolley which we couldn’t even push back to the trolley park. I can see why supermarkets do this, but they should provide reasonably sized carparks.
Aw. I love it that you waved to Her Maj and the kids. Nice image of the Britannia!
Yes all this St George’s flag business is making me feel like an ex-pat.
Surely that last sentence was some kind of typo aberration?
ps I didn’t have you down as a NotW reader but perhaps that phrase has passed into general use… I’m sure that’s what you’d say anyway 😉
Isn’t it “Comeon Engerland?”
(BTW on my small net book I can’t make out what the notice you are talking about actually says. PLease could someone enlighten me?)
Good fun, John. I popped into my local Tesco a couple of day’s ago and there was nothing remotely like this. It was all quite boringly normal.
Nice picture of Britannia.
Nym: I think it says “Trolleys will automatically stop when taken beyond this point.”
Hello John. Here in SA, the nation is gripped by World Cup Fever. I am a gentleman and so of course cannot abide the game, but it would be churlish to be too Bah Humbuggish about it all. Many thousands of cars have various flags flying from them. Often they will have two, South Africa’s, and that of the country from which they or their ancestors hail. I have none so far, but am keeping an eye out for the flag of North Korea. I think that would reflect a suitable level of protest. But of course in reality I support England.
Hello John
As Sipu has said the nation is gripped with this world cup fever, we however have the luxury of buying our paraphernalia from the side of the road (as you no doubt remember), everything from shirts, flags, car mirror covers, and more!