I often check Feedjit’s little Live Traffic Feed thingy over there in the sidebar to see who is reading the blog, and when I see a flag I haven’t seen before, I save a copy of it.
Yesterday I saved another one and it turned out to be Montenegro. Since I hadn’t counted my flag files in quite a while, I decided to count my flag files.
Adding Montenegro’s flag to my collection brought the number of countries or quasi-countries or entities-that-have-a-flag that have visited this blog to 149. Yes! 149! I don’t think the European Union is really a country, though. But since it does have a flag and even a parliament, when it comes right down to where the rubber meets the road, one can’t be absolutely sure.
I tried to include a montage, a collage, a conglomeration, an aggregation, and even a collection of my little flag files, but my computer refuses to cooperate.
Instead, here, cheek by jowl, is an alphabetic list of all 149 flags that I have copied:
Afghanistan Albania Algeria Angola Anguilla Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Belarus Belgium Belize Bermuda Bolivia Bosnia-Herzegovina Brazil British Virgin Islands Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Cambodia Canada Cayman Islands Channel Islands, Jersey, & St. Helier Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Croatia Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominica Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Estonia European Union Fiji Finland France Gabon Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Guam Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kenya Kuwait Latvia Lebanon Libya Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Macedonia Malawi Malaysia Maldives Malta Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Moldovia Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua Nigeria Northern Marianas Islands Norway Oman Pakistan Palestinian Territory Panama Peru Philippines Portugal Poland Puerto Rico Qatar Reunion Romania Russia Rwanda Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia South Africa South Korea Spain Sri Lanka St. Vincent and Grenadines Sudan Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tanzania Thailand Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Tuvalu Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States of America Uruguay U.S. Virgin Islands Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia
My first thought after ploughing through that list is that there were 204 flags at the London 2012 Olympics, and even that number may not include all of the possible places.
How many of the other 55 (or so) can you name off the top of your head and without consulting a map, a globe, a search engine or a Google-savvy wizard?
I’ll help you get started. Let’s see, there’s Niger and Burundi and Tunisia and Bhutan and Tibet and Ethiopia and Mali and Laos and Paraguay and ....
Maybe 149 doesn’t really qualify as a milestone. Maybe it’s just a place along the route. I’m hoping someone will make it 150 before long
After that, the sky’s the limit. Well, 204 anyway.
This celebratory blogpost has left me feeling utterly distraught as you have not acknowledged the flag of our famous Yorkshire nation - a white Yorkshire rose on a light blue background. See Google Image Search for examples.
ReplyDeleteLord Pudding, sir, I completely understand what you are saying, really I do, but I'm afraid the U.K. gets one flag and one flag only in Feedjit's tightly-controlled world. Your Yorkshire is treated as merely a county within the U.K., albeit the largest one. It's the same thing with the U.S. of A; none of our 50 state flags is recognized by Feedjit, not Texas, not Georgia, not Alaska. I'm sorry. It is what it is.
ReplyDeleteSo I guess there's not one there for Queensland either ?
ReplyDeleteJust checked mine and there's been a visitor from Benin ! Never heard of it but just looked it up. I see it's not there on your list.
ReplyDeleteMr Rhymes, thank you for that explanation - now I shall lie down in a dark room and decide between pills, a rope or a leap from the Humber Bridge. Boo hoo! Boo hoo! Oh, woe is me!
ReplyDeleteHelsie, nope, no Queensland or New South Wales or even Tasmania.
ReplyDeleteYorkmeister, perk up, man, it's always darkest just before the dawn. I have no idea what that means in relation to your current predicament, however.
After reading your post I went back to mine since my daughter installed the Flag Counter on my blog when she helped me start it. Well, surprise! It said 195 countries had visited my site and the newest flag was from Liechtenstein. I am way behind reading blogs so I won’t try to look at all those flags but isn’t it interesting how the internet has made us all so close. I always wonder when I see a dot from Mongolia for example and try to visualize the person reading my post.
ReplyDeleteVagabonde, I'm impressed! Wow, 195! I don't have one of those Flag Counters, however, just the Feedjit Live Traffic thingy. I have to count my flag files by hand.
ReplyDeleteFor the Flag Counter – go to my blog and click on the Flag Counter on the right hand side. Once opened go to the top and click on “get yours” and it is free. I think it is easy to get it.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever go anywhere not yet flagged on your site, I shall look you up.
ReplyDeleteGoing to Aussie next Monday, but you already have the Aussie flag...