Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

randomhandclaps

Has anyone been?

We ordered two poppies at the start of it and have talked about going up but time has kind of ran away from us.  Had finally planned to go this week then thought we would have to go to visit family on a mercy mission which thankfully didn't happen, but in the meantime all picked up a lurgee that we are just recovering from.  It's now shitty weather in London and we are trying to debate whether we should go and have a look whilst it's still half term and before it goes.

Drew_TNBD

I want to.

chillidoggy

We might be going next Tuesday, weather dependant. Our neighbours went, and said they thought it was an awesome sight, very moving.

randomhandclaps

I'm tempted to go another week (sans kids) but our youngest has school nursery from 8:30 to 11:30, which in reality by the time you've done all the faffing around and including the fact they actually start turning the out at 11:15 means it only gives you a 2 1/2 hour window.  Getting from Wimbledon to the Tower Of London and back can be done in that time obviously but can be damn tight.

VimFuego

we'd like to, but saw some footage of the crowds and both had a mahoussive panic attack. Don't think I can do crowds anymore.

randomhandclaps

chillidoggy said:

We might be going next Tuesday, weather dependant. Our neighbours went, and said they thought it was an awesome sight, very moving.

My mother-in-law went on Monday and said it was one of the most moving things she had ever seen.  She's just said she's devastated that she didn't order a poppy as it would have meant a lot to her - she doesn't know that I already ordered her one for Christmas.

Gassage

I work about 25m from it in the dock. I wholeheartedly approve but I believe the veterans should be retrained to eliminate dithering tourists with maps standing on the pathway and around tower hill station- it's a bloody obstacle course.

randomhandclaps

VimFuego said:

we'd like to, but saw some footage of the crowds and both had a mahoussive panic attack. Don't think I can do crowds anymore.

Same here - plus getting there would involve public transport which I find very difficult.  I really want to be it equally turns my stomach at the thought. 

Fretwired

As expected the left hate it .. The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower-of-london-poppies-ukip-remembrance-day

Looks good to me ...

randomhandclaps

...and we all know how much left wing politics would have flourished had it not been for the millions who died in both world wars don't we?

chillidoggy

Fretwired said:

As expected the left hate it .. The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower-of-london-poppies-ukip-remembrance-day

What a total bell-end. There's no other word to describe him.

randomhandclaps

chillidoggy said:

Fretwired said:

As expected the left hate it .. The Tower of London poppies are fake, trite and inward-looking – a Ukip-style memorial

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2014/oct/28/tower-of-london-poppies-ukip-remembrance-day

What a total bell-end. There's no other word to describe him.

Couldn't agree more with any statement ever made.

Gassage

I'd rather read one @randomhandclaps post that that twats entire blog. I'm no sympathiser with military action but this is about normal people who were bloody brave and fought for my right to waste money on Cornish pedals being honoured

imalone

Went in September, not many crowds then (it was a lovely sunny day, but also a weekday which might have helped). Pretty impressive and quite moving. (Also did the IWM the day before, which is good for context.)

Wait, I'd consider myself on the left. Sorry, take it all back, must be misremembering, clearly I hated it.

VimFuego

hmmm, just to be a contrarion here, he's not saying their sacrifice shouldn't be remembered, he's saying he doesn't like that installation and that he felt it doesn't do justice to them and what they endured. Personally, I don't agree with him, the poppy was in many ways a perfect way to remember this as it wasn't about the glorious victors or glamourising war, it was (to me anyways) a statement of the futility of war, all that blood and death and yet a year after the war, poppy's grew in that field where men died. It was as if to say that the planet doesn't care for your petty little struggles, it will just keep doing its thing.

He's entitled to not like something, I don't think that makes him a bellend or a twat. Nor is it the left hating it.

lustycourtier

VimFuego said:

hmmm, just to be a contrarion here, he's not saying their sacrifice shouldn't be remembered, he's saying he doesn't like that installation and that he felt it doesn't do justice to them and what they endured. Personally, I don't agree with him, the poppy was in many ways a perfect way to remember this as it wasn't about the glorious victors or glamourising war, it was (to me anyways) a statement of the futility of war, all that blood and death and yet a year after the war, poppy's grew in that field where men died. It was as if to say that the planet doesn't care for your petty little struggles, it will just keep doing its thing.

He's entitled to not like something, I don't think that makes him a bellend or a twat. Nor is it the left hating it.

This.Though I must add, I wear a purple poppy each year.

VimFuego

I still wear the poppy, even though it has been appropriated by the unthinking flag wavers, as I believe that while we are still sending young men and women off to foreign fields to kill and be killed for ideals they are lied to about, then they need all the help they can get when they get back. It's not their fault they are maimed to increase the bottom line of a PLC somewhere.

Fretwired

VimFuego said:

Nor is it the left hating it.

The hard left doesn't like the sale of poppies with good reason.

The Labour-aligned “National Association of Discharged Sailors and Soldiers” was set up in 1917, campaigning for better war pensions and jobs, excluding officers from membership. The left-Liberal organized “National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers” campaigned under the slogan “justice not charity”. In opposition to these organisations a charity for ex-servicemen was launched in 1921,  and the sale of poppies was used to mark the build-up to Remembrance Day. It is named after Sir Douglas Haig, the British senior officer responsible for the massacre at the battles of the Somme and the Passchendaele. The British Legion continued to veer further to the political right, with figures like Lord Derby taking a lead on its work.

My grandfather fought at the Somme on day one and in many other battles and survived although he was mentally scarred. He didn't wear a poppy until the 1970s and many of the men who fought in WW1 didn't either - it did nothing for them. They needed financial help but got the great depression and faced years of unemployment and grinding poverty until it all kicked off again.

I'm just glad I didn't have to fight and I will wear a poppy to remember the sacrifice my grandfather's generation.

VimFuego

heh, I come from a long line of dockers (reserved occupation in both wars) so there is no tradition of fighting in wars in my family at all (my dad did national service, he played saxophone in the REME band). I'm proud to say I come from a long line of never served.

ESBlonde

I never served but my grandfather was shot in WW1 (having lied about his age to join up) and again as unfit for front line service as a machine gun instructor in WW11. I wasn't alive then and don't know the emotions and horrors they did first hand. I do buy a poppy every year and contribute a substantial sum to any 'collector' on the cold street wearing their hat/medals. Best repayment I make all year Fact!

 

holnrew

My dead Grandad fought with Canada in Sicily. I should ask my dad more about it. He had his hand injured (lost a finger and half a thumb). He wasn't a nice man, but you can't turn your nose up at that sacrifice.