The Crapper of St. George

Crapper of St George, originally uploaded by Mr Atrocity.

All in the UK cannot have failed to notice that a football World Cup is almost upon us. As a football fan I am not immune to this but what I am inured to is the panoply of St George branded tat that accompanies all such tournaments and the sprouting of flags everywhere making the whole country look, as Jeremy Hardy put it, like a Loyalist housing estate.

I was moderately irritated by the trainers I saw in Lillywhite's with a tab you can fold back in the event of England actually winning the damned thing reading "'66 '06", a reference to the last (and only) time England won. I was puzzled by Stanley, a manufacturer of construction tools and DIY kit, who have brought out a range of flag of St. George branded spirit levels, tape measures and the like. But I was downright flabbergasted by what you see above, spotted in a shop on the Walworth Road in London (off which Charlie Chaplin was born for those who care).

What does a flag of St George lavatory seat mean? "Every movement I make I'm further in touch with my deep cultural roots"? "I'm crapping for Sven and the boys"? It's a mystery. Does someone look at their home and think, "Well I've got the replica shirt, I have the trainers and the spirit level but what's missing? Hmmm, let me see. Yup that's it, it is not enough for my body to be covered in England, that I check my shelves with England. No, I also have to take a shit with England too".

It boggles my tiny mind.