David Lange always had a way with words even if many of them were uttered with his tongue firmly embedded in his cheek.
Around the time his nemeses, Australian PM Bob Hawke, was having the New Zealand flag waved at him on a visit to Ottawa, Lange was giving his view of our two flags.
The late PM said a stranger who saw the Australian flag and the New Zealand flag outside adjacent buildings would assume that some British hotel chain was advertising deluxe and standard rooms. The big, extra star was presumably the more upmarket room.
Today voting papers will be sent out by the Electoral Commission to give Kiwis a vote they've never had before and are never likely to have again, at least until their grandchildren are old enough to vote themselves.
We've been bombarded with all the arguments, starting with the cost of the referenda - which makes you think Key could have simply done a Fijian Bainimarama and inflicted a new flag on us - to the alternative resembling a tea towel, which is dripping with drivel given that few of the critics have ever come up with anything better.