Whilst I’m on the subject of the power of symbols a while back Captain Ranty reported that it’s now terribly naughty according to the EU to use the “Keep Calm and carry on” image that the Government created back in 1939 as:
The EU has granted an EU Community Trade Mark to ‘KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON’ meaning that only one company may use the slogan for clothing, mugs, posters and other memorabilia.
Of course it’s quite possible our own trademark officials would have been just as stupid, in which case I’d no doubt be suggesting ignoring them and protesting about their actions. In more recent news of course some excitable chaps got excited at a French magazine putting a cartoon on their cover and fire bombed the offices of said magazine to register their distaste of this image:
Rather reassuringly various other publishers helped them out by giving them office space whilst their now burnt out offices were dealt with, and to show that there were no hard feelings about the incident Charlie Hebdo are now running with this cover (H/T Katabasis):
Which seems a terribly polite response to people that like to burn both buildings and poppies.