Poppies, Hfh, 'heroes' And All That

[geezer466]

That's what military pilots do. OK, there's also the ceremonial stuff, but training for war is the heart of the job.

Surely the more important issue is who actually conducts wars of aggression. And in recent times (and setting aside some very nasty but low-tech conflicts in the third world) that looks like NATO countries. Oh, and Israel, though only in its own backyard.

Yes they do otherwise what would be the point of having them....

Most other Countries don't do it on the edge of a potential enemies air space though....

The Cuba Missile crises (probably the one time the World came closest to Nuclear exchange) was defused and mainly on the basis that it was thought one errant shot from either the US or the Soviets ships/aircraft (bearing in mind tensions were very high) could kick off the whole badoodle and lead to the mutually assured destruction scenario.

Kennedy and Khrushchev viewed to see whose dick was the biggest. As it turned out Khrushchev blinked first..

Confrontation is a tried and tested Russian power play, the trick in it is mastering it to just before the the point before shots are fired.

All them nuclear missiles the Russians and the US had never went away you know.

SALT and the other treaties just reduced the numbers of them and restricted the deployment of strategic weapons like the ones the US kept at Greenham Common.

[Bloo Loo]

Yes they do otherwise what would be the point of having them....

Most other Countries don't do it on the edge of a potential enemies air space though....

The Cuba Missile crises (probably the one time the World came closest to Nuclear exchange) was defused and mainly on the basis that it was thought one errant shot from either the US or the Soviets ships/aircraft (bearing in mind tensions were very high) could kick off the whole badoodle and lead to the mutually assured destruction scenario.

Kennedy and Khrushchev viewed to see whose dick was the biggest. As it turned out Khrushchev blinked first..

Confrontation is a tried and tested Russian power play, the trick in it is mastering it to just before the the point before shots are fired.

All them nuclear missiles the Russians and the US had never went away you know.

SALT and the other treaties just reduced the numbers of them and restricted the deployment of strategic weapons like the ones the US kept at Greenham Common.

Of course, our planes , and the rest of NATO, doing daily sorties, are just out there flying around aimlessly.

International airspace is International

The Nato press release talks about danger in European Controlled airspace...the Airways airliners use..no flight plans being the indicator of this fact,

Its BS.

Im not saying the Russians are all candy and light, but really, WE are the ones being the agressors here.

[geezer466]

Of course, our planes , and the rest of NATO, doing daily sorties, are just out there flying around aimlessly.

International airspace is International

The Nato press release talks about danger in European Controlled airspace...the Airways airliners use..no flight plans being the indicator of this fact,

Its BS.

Im not saying the Russians are all candy and light, but really, WE are the ones being the agressors here.

I will have a packet of what you are smoking....

The early warning radar indicates there is to be a likely breach of the airspace so the RAF send fast interceptors up to investigate what is going on. The BBC report mentions these aircraft do not file flight plans.

Only last week in another incident a couple of Typhoons went supersonic over Southern England (rattling a few windows in the process) to intercept a Latvian cargo plane who they had lost communications with.

It was on a flight path coming close to London and they needed to ascertain it's intent. As it turned out it was all innocent and the aircraft was escorted into Stanstead.

All of this is pretty much tit for tat stuff. I don't mean what you mean by aggressors? We as the UK don't fly military aircraft close to the Russian border although we have sent troops on NATO exercises into the Baltic Countries.

These Countries were members of the EU before they were members of NATO.

If you are saying the EU is expansionist then I don't have an issue with that, yet another reason to kick our membership into touch before they drag us into another war on the European continent. NATO is simply a collection of nations with a common defence policy (as per the founding aims of the organisation) we don't run it we are simply one member with one vote.

[Bloo Loo]

I will have a packet of what you are smoking....

The early warning radar indicates there is to be a likely breach of the airspace so the RAF send fast interceptors up to investigate what is going on. The BBC report mentions these aircraft do not file flight plans.

Only last week in another incident a couple of Typhoons went supersonic over Southern England (rattling a few windows in the process) to intercept a Latvian cargo plane who they had lost communications with.

It was on a flight path coming close to London and they needed to ascertain it's intent. As it turned out it was all innocent and the aircraft was escorted into Stanstead.

All of this is pretty much tit for tat stuff. I don't mean what you mean by aggressors? We as the UK don't fly military aircraft close to the Russian border although we have sent troops on NATO exercises into the Baltic Countries.

These Countries were members of the EU before they were members of NATO.

If you are saying the EU is expansionist then I don't have an issue with that, yet another reason to kick our membership into touch before they drag us into another war on the European continent. NATO is simply a collection of nations with a common defence policy (as per the founding aims of the organisation) we don't run it we are simply one member with one vote.

By we, I mean NATO.

You only file flight plans with civil ATC if you want to use their services.

[Steppenpig]

Money saving tip: grow your own!

[Goat]

We are closer to another war in Europe today than we have been since the Berlin Wall came down.

Things could get very dangerous if/when the Russian economy goes pop, which seems likely to happen within the next few years.

[Nuggets Mahoney]

Money saving tip: grow your own!

As opposed to invading the world's largest producer?

[Guest Jemmy Button]

I honestly could not give a shiny sh1te about our beloved armed forces. Misguided tools, the lot of 'em...

[Rave]

I stopped wearing poppies as a teenager as the black plastic bit in the middle had "Haig Fund" on them, and my (quite possibly biased) GCSE history course had convinced me that Haig was a REMF of the first order.

I'm not sure that I even knew at the time that my paternal grandfather lost his leg while serving as an underage soldier in WW1. It was only a couple of years ago that I first saw his death certificate and found out that he was born in 1898, so he must have been injured in the first couple of years of the war. Obviously that was also when I realised that he was 54 when my father was born. He died aged 76 five years before I was born.

Anyway that has no bearing on my attitude to poppy wearing. I generally don't bother unless I see an obvious WW2 vet flogging them, in which case I might buy one. My mum is a pacifist, and says that she'd never fight even if the country were invaded by fascists. I don't go that far, I'd certainly fight to protect my own country, but I long ago lost any interest in fighting to protect anyone else's. I live in SE London and nobody would harangue you for not wearing a poppy round here.

[gf3]

Okay, having just seen this story I am buying one tomorrow:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11203818/Army-Cadet-suffers-burns-in-attack-after-selling-poppies.html

What a blow torch?

[libspero]

Russians get very twitchy about what they see as the enemy close to their own borders.

You seem to have a very polarised view of international politics. What makes you think any country would like to see an aggressor on its borders?

Why do you think the U.S. Annexed part of Cuba? What do you think they would do if China built a missile "defence" system along the Mexican border? Why do you think the Russians annexed the Crimea?

All nations act fairly predictably / similarly when threatened. There isn't really a "them and us".

[porca misèria]

As opposed to invading the world's largest producer?

They were a much smaller producer before we invaded. Under a government that clamped down on them on the grounds of being un-Islamic.

[Frank Hovis]

What a blow torch?

Not remotely funny.

[porca misèria]

Not remotely funny.

Heh. I didn't even get it until you said that. Parsing bad grammar (in this instance mentally inserting that comma) is that little bit too much effort when you're not interested enough to take the trouble.

I have no intention of buying either a poppy or a blowtorch. In the context of this thread (and the absence of a legitimate use for the blowtorch), either would be thoroughly offensive.

[Si1]

I think one of the costs of the long term peace we have enjoyed is that we've forgotten what a privilege it is

Lest we forget

[geezer466]

I think one of the costs of the long term peace we have enjoyed is that we've forgotten what a privilege it is

Lest we forget

The sale and wearing of poppies at this time of the year is as much about honouring the war dead as it is remembering what the horror of what war is all about....

It is no accident that the horrors of war and the reasons as to why we wear the poppy are part of the National Curriculum and long may it continue to be so.....

[Bloo Loo]

I think one of the costs of the long term peace we have enjoyed is that we've forgotten what a privilege it is

Lest we forget

Long term peace?...wasnt it just a couple of months ago that they declared that for the first time in 100 years, our army wasnt at war with somebody?

[R K]

Manipulative, obsessional, disquieting - Saatchi & Saatchi meets North Korea sort of unease

[geezer466]

Not when it is explained to schoolchildren that each poppy represents a British or colonial life lost in WW1.

Bit like standing amongst the headstones in Tyne Cot cemetery (Ypres) until you can fathom the actual numbers and equate it with something tangible then it is difficult to understand.

Maybe if the same sort of thing had been done in the 60's when Blair was a schoolchild and he had experienced it he would not have launched the UK to war in the sandy and hot places.

[Bloo Loo]

Not when it is explained to schoolchildren that each poppy represents a British or colonial life lost in WW1.

Bit like standing amongst the headstones in Tyne Cot cemetery (Ypres) until you can fathom the actual numbers and equate it with something tangible then it is difficult to understand.

Maybe if the same sort of thing had been done in the 60's when Blair was a schoolchild and he had experienced it he would not have launched the UK to war in the sandy and hot places.

I doubt that very much...Having such power invigourates his type.

[Nuggets Mahoney]

Manipulative, obsessional, disquieting - Saatchi & Saatchi meets North Korea sort of unease

All 888,000 poppies have been sold, raising according to the Independent up to (maybe) £11.2m for six charities.

That's £12.60 per poppy out of a sale price of £25.

Which, to a cynic, means that someone's managed to flog almost a million mass-produced mantelpiece ornaments for £12.40 ... plus £5.95 P&P, ker-ching.

Re. us being complacent about a lifetime of peace.

I'm no pacifist, I've worn and when young shook a tin for poppies. Even Orwell acknowledged that "men can be highly civilized only while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."

But, as best as I can tell, that peace we've benefited from is due largely to the existence of nuclear weapons and our leaders gambling the integrity of the planet for thousands of years to protect their favoured system of government for a few decades here and there.

For tens of millions of people outside of the f**ked-up exercise in risk-benefit that is the nuclear umbrella, life hasn't been peaceful at all.

[Si1]

All 888,000 poppies have been sold, raising according to the Independent up to (maybe) £11.2m for six charities.

That's £12.60 per poppy out of a sale price of £25.

Which, to a cynic, means that someone's managed to flog almost a million mass-produced mantelpiece ornaments for £12.40 ... plus £5.95 P&P, ker-ching.

Re. us being complacent about a lifetime of peace.

I'm no pacifist, I've worn and when young shook a tin for poppies. Even Orwell acknowledged that "men can be highly civilized only while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."

But, as best as I can tell, that peace we've benefited from is due largely to the existence of nuclear weapons and our leaders gambling the integrity of the planet for thousands of years to protect their favoured system of government for a few decades here and there.

For tens of millions of people outside of the f**ked-up exercise in risk-benefit that is the nuclear umbrella, life hasn't been peaceful at all.

In more recent times, how have Brazil, Argentina, south Africa, SE Asia (post Vietnam) fared?

[geezer466]

All 888,000 poppies have been sold, raising according to the Independent up to (maybe) £11.2m for six charities.

That's £12.60 per poppy out of a sale price of £25.

Which, to a cynic, means that someone's managed to flog almost a million mass-produced mantelpiece ornaments for £12.40 ... plus £5.95 P&P, ker-ching.

Re. us being complacent about a lifetime of peace.

I'm no pacifist, I've worn and when young shook a tin for poppies. Even Orwell acknowledged that "men can be highly civilized only while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them."

But, as best as I can tell, that peace we've benefited from is due largely to the existence of nuclear weapons and our leaders gambling the integrity of the planet for thousands of years to protect their favoured system of government for a few decades here and there.

For tens of millions of people outside of the f**ked-up exercise in risk-benefit that is the nuclear umbrella, life hasn't been peaceful at all.

There is a video on the Tower of London website which explains the thinking behind the idea and the manufacturing process and distribution of the product.

There is a SME in Derbyshire which has manufactured them all and delivered them down to the Tower. The cost also includes the packing, cleaning and sorting replacement of damaged items.

The boxing up of nearly a Million china flowers for onward posting is no mean feat and will have a significant labour cost.

I don't doubt that a profit is being made (for the firms involved in all this) but I think you are exaggerating it a little. Anyway the process provided gainful employment for a number of people and generated valuable funds for charity as well as being a fitting tribute and reminding everyone of the scale of the loss in WW1 so it had to be worthwhile.

At least the hundreds of thousands of people who have been down there to look at it would think anyway.......

As for the Nuclear umbrella it really is mutually assured destruction.... As I mentioned earlier in the thread and a bit like the IRA in Ireland. They never really went away you know.....

[Nuggets Mahoney]

I don't doubt that a profit is being made (for the firms involved in all this) but I think you are exaggerating it a little. Anyway the process provided gainful employment for a number of people and generated valuable funds for charity as well as being a fitting tribute and reminding everyone of the scale of the loss in WW1 so it had to be worthwhile.

Just to be clear, I'm not taking a pop at remembering the cost of war, looking out for the victims of war (combatants and non combatants), or even folk making an honest profit.

My perception of the charity industry in general has changed over the last ten to twenty years though. It could at least partially be down to me becoming a cynical old scrote. However, aside from that, there is also an element of good causes increasingly being treated as 'brands', with loads of accumulated goodwill, ripe for commercialisation by people who specialize in such things.

That's arguably OK, provided it's not overdone and the brand becomes tarnished. I'm not suggesting the Poppy Appeal and associated causes have quite reached that point, yet.

All that aside, if we as a society can afford to put soldiers in harm's way and spank billions to the benefit of a highly lucrative war industry, we really should be putting aside a small fraction of that spend to properly care for the casualties, without p1ssing around with charity fund-raising.

[R K]

Not when it is explained to schoolchildren that each poppy represents a British or colonial life lost in WW1.

Bit like standing amongst the headstones in Tyne Cot cemetery (Ypres) until you can fathom the actual numbers and equate it with something tangible then it is difficult to understand.

Maybe if the same sort of thing had been done in the 60's when Blair was a schoolchild and he had experienced it he would not have launched the UK to war in the sandy and hot places.

Er nothing at all like that. Most school kids seem to visit Normandy at some point (mine did).

The 'poppy' branding is pure Saatchi & Saatchi propaganda. It's not in Normandy and it's nothing at all like a young man being blown to bits or poisoned in the trenches. It's bizarre abstract brainwashing/war propaganda. Even to question it one is seen as being unpatriotic or anti-British which should raise a red flag on its own.