The people's flag is eau de nil

Mamie Amazed that your OH takes an interest, we argue about many things, but paint colour is never one of them
Who would have thought that an amusing verse thread would have sparked all our replies?

My OH and I have been known to argue for an hour, only to arrive back at the same F and B shade (White Tie) that we have everywhere else.

There's a F and B where I live, but my eau de nil is from the lower market B and Q!

We had our paint colour specially mixed but it's not F and B.

Of course it can't be just any old common or garden eau de nil. It has to be Farrow and Ball. Our exterior gates here in France are painted in F and B Green Smoke, lightly faded to the correct colour. They actually have shops here, though the prices are eye-watering.

All through my childhood, in fact until I was well into my forties, ALL outdoor paintwork in the neighbourhood - sheds, gates, fences, kennels, benches - was painted a glossy dark green, referred to as DCL green. It was only after the local distilleries changed hands that a variety of colours started to appear and I realised where all the paint had come from.

I've come over all Cotswoldy now.

My back garden fencing and gates are eau de nil.

I like that one AlieOxon

I think you may be right, anno - my grandparents' external house paintwork was just that colour (including the coal hole!).

Our coalhouse door in the 40s was green - sort of dark leaf green. So was all the other external paintwork. I think it must have been the only paint available during the war!

Sorry - "HE was implying" etc

As I understand it Alie was was implyiong that it was the colour of old faded paint - a bit like you get on French shops in the depths of the country! I initially misread your post Ana and thought you had wtitten old privy - which may be closer than you think!

There's a lot of Oxford Blue around there!

The takeoff I knew was quite an old one:

"The people's flag is palest pink
since Gaitskell washed it in the sink
But just to prove that we’re sincere
We’ll sing the Red Flag once a year...."

I think 'eau-de-nil' just rhymes!

Around the area of Chatsworth all woodwork etc in the villages is the same shade of "bluey green".Very feudal I have always thought.

I think the 'tasteful green' Alan Bennett refers to as coalhouse door colour is rather brighter and denser than eau de nil - more like old privet.

Soutra maybe the coalhouse doors in the Cotswolds are eau de nil too!As Alan Bennet comes from a poor part of Leeds [Armley, near the prison]I would be amazed if coalhouse doors were that colour but one never knows.
Phoenix good verse, I can just imagine Ed Milliband and Ed balls singing that version around the Christmas tree [not]
FlicketyB I was just going to talk seriously about class....... think somehow that I won't now.

Thank you, merlot I could go on, but I wont.

We ripped out every dado rail when we moved in here - mind you, there was truly horrific wallpaper (in clashing patterns) above and below. That went too.

I agree woth Flickety - wealthy, middling income, poor. Sub classified, perhaps, as she also suggests later, with education level. Haven't thought that one out yet.

Our whole house, indoors, was painted eau de nil when I was a child, with a dingy cream woodwork - apparently these were the paint colours you could get after the war. I have, unconsciously I think, avoided it in my own homes.

We'll (try to) keep the red flag flying here. Might get a bit wet, though.

Where you hang your dildos is none of our business, Soutra...

Well put, Phoenix.

it would be ,

Isn't eau de nil the colour Alan Bennett refers to as "coalhouse door"??
We have a dado rail in our hall and up the stairs too, Nonu only it is always referred to as the dildo rail

I have to live on JSA
It works out to £10 a day,
No money left to pay the bills
No free prescriptions for my ills (bit in brackets not included in song, but I get the wrong sort of JSA)
(middle eight, slightly higher key)

So tell me please,
Why should it be
That others get it all for free
When I have paid all through the past,
And now just get kicked up the arse.