Flagging interest in what represents our city

IT ARRIVED early in the morning.

I was nervous.

I don’t handle mysterious packages in case they are, well, dangerous.

So I gave it to the boss.

He bravely ripped it open. I waited. He was still in one piece, so I came from around the corner and looked inside.

A folded, rather colourful cloth was inside, a tea towel perhaps, it had a mango tree on it, stripes and two loops … a flag!

How wonderful, thought I. Lucky for you, thought the boss. Lucky for him, thought I … that it didn’t do anything else.

Inside was also a letter of explanation, which was most kind, as the boss had no idea, and of course I have very few of them too.

I’d been presented with the official flag of Halifax, and made the official MP of the area.

No, not member of parliament, but the Mango Picker-upper in the main street of Halifax during the mango season.

Most kind.

No doubt that will mean cleaning up after those things that eat the mangoes too.

Never stand under the southern end of a flying fox after a good feed of mangoes. That stuff is nature’s napalm.

Though foxes sleep upside down, what if they did it and … doesn’t matter.

It eats through anything.

Put it this way, if you park under a tree at

Dan Gleeson gardens, you’ll end up with a convertible.

So here we have the official flag of Halifax, resplendent in colour, and there, in the middle, a giant mango tree. The insignia of Halifax.

These mighty mango trees are actually heritage listed. Fair dinkum, they were planted in 1885 and listed in 2003.

Does that mean no pruning without calling the heritage mob to check it’s within heritage rules?

Are the mangoes themselves heritage listed? What about the green ants that live on the mangoes that live on the heritage mango trees?

Deep stuff this, but anything to take us away from another election poster, debate or ad.

I wonder if the heritage fruit bats from the heritage mango trees ever defaced an election poster, or did they and no one noticed?

Sorry, all in fun.

Now where was I, I’ll just look at what I’ve written. Lucky I did, dreadful spelling ... ah yes the flag of Halifax, it’s a ripper.

We have it flying at the corner of Hugh St and Woolcockatoo St.

On the Halifax letter of explanation, which by the way is written in heritage mango juice, it explains the colours on the flag; they are colours from the flags of the various nations who pioneered this amazing part of the world.

How good is that, and Queensland has a Maltese cross.

Not a dog, the other cross – it’s getting complicated.

Our Townsville flag, so I’m told, has the city seal in the middle. Why on Earth would we have a seal? A dolphin or humpback whale or, if I was mayor, a clownfish, but a seal????

Anyway, what tree would we have? Maybe the Townsville frangipani, palm tree, the glorious weeping tea tree along the River Ross, and no, not the Lavatree.

Interesting though, a flag has the most important elements of one’s city, what would be our three??????

Happy days ooroo.