Sunday 26 October 2008

Red and blue (and orange)

I'm finally approaching the point where, when I see US election coverage on TV, I don't get alarmed when I see more blue than red on the map showing who's in line to win which state. (Donkeys and elephants still get me confused though.) I assumed there was some historical reason for the lefter of the two parties being blue, perhaps dating back to the Civil War, but no, it looks as if it was all down to the television companies, and quite a recent thing too.

On a tenuously related point, who was it who convinced the Liberal Party to choose orange (and then yellow)? It's not a good look, especially not those yellow jackets the women seem to favour at Lib Dem conferences.

My aversion to orange might stem from the fact that when I was growing up my mother decided that the best way to deal with having six daughters was to colour code them. Pink for number one (the cute blonde one); blue for number three; green for number four; purple for number five; and red for number six. Being the ginger one - or 'light auburn' as she used to diplomatically put it - I ended up being orange: orange toothbrush, orange clothes, orange wallpaper in my bedroom. (Very helpful as obviously without the colour-coding I would have had no idea at all where to sleep each night). She refuses to acknowledge even now that this was tantamount to child abuse.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

you must have been wealthy not to hand things down, or did your mum dye the clothes as they passed from one daughter to another

Kerry said...

I wouldn't put it past her.

Not absolutely everything was colour-coded; she was also very fond of dressing us all in matching outfits from Mothercare. So I guess the youngest got to wear the same outfit from the age of 2 to 13!

Anonymous said...

ya my mum always had me and my brother dressed in matching clothes. THAT is child abuse

Kerry said...

Making your brother dress like you? Yes, I can see that.