It may be a surprise to you, as it was to me, to learn that “say it with flowers” did not orginate as Interflora’s slogan but was in fact a 1934 British musical film. Faced by the many memes associated with the Red Peak flag in New Zealand, I felt I could reinterpret it with flowers. First up was the one in the style of floral clocks, perhaps.

It is not that I am totally enamoured of the Red Peak flag option. It is that I do not appreciate being given a choice of four designs for our proposed new national ensign that are a silver fern, a silver fern, a silver fern and a close-up of a fern frond (for that is what the black and white koru represents). Given that our Prime Minister has made no secret of his strong preference for a silver fern, I can’t help but feel that crowd-sourcing the designs and then going through a $28 million “public consultation” and not one, but two referendums, all to achieve what looks like a pre-determined outcome is a bit of a have, really. Over 10 000 designs submitted and it came down to three silver ferns and a close-up of an unfurling frond? I feel short-changed, as apparently the majority of New Zealanders do at this stage of the campaign.

   

So I am backing Red Peak as an alternative option to be added to the referendum just to give an alternative choice to the fern logos. In my mind, after doing the floral clock styled Red Peak, I mentally envisaged the Japanese-influenced Ikebana style, stripped bare and exquisitely simple, capturing the essence of the design only. Alas my skills in floral art are non-existent and I quickly realised that translating the mental image to reality was well beyond my capabilities.

When all is said and done, we’d have had a lot more fun with the wild card, Lazer Kiwi though I feel this may be better rendered in the style of a vegetable animal, such as our children used to create for the annual Show Day at primary school.