It appears that the mad Mullahs are being warned about self harm. No, not the obvious in that they have woken up large sections of the European public as to the unreasonableness of their brand of Salafic extremism, though that is undoubtedly true. Nor indeed the bringing to the fore of many moderate Muslims who have with perseverance and courage stood up the fanatics. No this advice is more practical.

The Welsh flag maker, Mr Flag, has issued a warning to the fanatics,

“We have experienced a rise in orders for the Danish colours,” owner Robin Ashburner confirmed. But he warned, “It has to be pointed out though that a number of modern flags are now made largely of polyester and when they burn they melt. That means if they are whirled around by a protester, his or her fellow protesters could be splashed by flying pieces of burning material. If it got into the eye it could do serious damage so we are about to issue a warning to this effect on our website.”

Indeed here is the warning:

For safety reasons we don’t recommend that you burn our flags, but if you absolutely MUST, please do so with due regard to those around you. Polyester fabric melts when put to the flame and will spatter high-temperature droplets of molten polyester if swung around.

That such a thing might happen, blinded by their own rage perhaps?

Mr Ashburner (an appropriate name for a flagmaker these days) has a lot of Arab customers:

In Gaza City where Danish and Norwegian flags are usually unseen, shopkeepers have been putting in big orders to flagmakers. The Scandinavian flags are now more popular there and in cities like Beirut and Damascus, where foreign embassies have been burned, than the Star of David standard, often a flag burning target for anti-Israeli demonstrators.

Mr Flag, one of the UK’s few flagmakers, has cultivated a global market through its internet site and Mr Ashburner says there is often a “blip” in sales after world events.

He said, “I had a call just this week from an American guy who was very fed up with seeing the American flag being burned on news TV. He wanted to do his own protest and asked me to supply him with the official Hamas colours so he could be the first American to be shown on CNN burning a Hamas flag. I had to turn down his request because at the moment Hamas is still a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.”