I recently returned from holiday. The segue from hot dry days oiled with rosé and factor 30 to a best-of-British grey rainy day was harsh. But as I took myself out for provisions, slapping my sandals through puddles under a leaden sky, my mood lifted. The high street was lined with our beautiful Union flags. Bright red, white and blue cut through the drizzle like fireworks. A reminder that this is home.
Not everyone feels the same. Twitter, that great sewer of national neurosis, is on fire with polarised responses to a few flags on lampposts. Some of us see hope, pride and courage. Others see racism, fascism and the end of civilisation. And so I would like to coin a new word for our times: Vexillophobia.
Vexillology is the study of flags. A vexillophile is someone who loves them. I am amazed that no one else has coined the obvious opposite, vexillophobia, until now. Yet here we are, in a country that actually needs a word for people who recoil in horror at bunting.
A vexillophobe hates flags. They are allergic to bunting. They start to twitch at the sight of a fluttering Union Jack. The St George’s cross provokes maximum fear and outrage in the vexillophobe.
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