The Poppy

[saffron sam2]

Meanwhile, in other news from Mayo, a strange contraption known as a "horseless carriage" was reported as being seen in the main street in Ballintubber. It was said by amazed witnesses to be proceeding at an estimated 7 miles per hour (Irish miles) and caused a large sow to have to shift from out of the gutter rather more quickly than you might expect. Mrs. O'Grady reported that her hens have since stopped laying.

Surely you should put this in the "How you met your partner" thread.

[Evil Genius]

obv you dont like the fact that I wont condemn a man for exercising his right to freedom of choice !

No, I would actually commend  you for declining to condemn a man for exercising his freedom of choice to support injured British troops etc (via "Help For Heroes" in Cunningham's case).
The problem arises when you automatically condemn every person you see in NI who exercises his/her freedom of choice to support injured British troops etc (via the RBL, in Poppy-wearers' case).
I had hoped my earlier use of the term "hypocrite" might have been a sufficient clue...

also that you cannot comprehend that proportionally more wearers in the north of Ireland than wearers in England as viewed by more or less every person that has been in both places says it all !
I think you are more enid blyton than evil Gaafan !

I have pointed out that last year, there were 26 million Poppies sold in the UK i.e. to a an overall population of 60 million, of whom just 1.8 million live in NI.

AZOffally helpfully pointed out the following:

"In 2006, Northern Ireland raised £885,000 for the appeal. I don't know how much per poppy to give a number sold amount. Also I'm sure it includes non-poppy donations.
In 2006 the overall figure raised by the Legion was 27.7 million. So, the Northern Ireland amount was about 3.2 percent of funds.
Given the fact that NI makes up approx 3% of the population of the UK as well (office of National Statistics for the UK - 2009), it would appear that at face value NI is raising approx it's fair share"

Both sets of statistics would indicate between them that there is not a huge disparity in Poppy-wearing and donating habits between NI and the rest of the UK.

Yet you completely ignore them, on the basis of what you personally allege to have observed - despite the fact that you almost certainly have never actually asked a single one why, where or how often they wear their Poppy...

And you  accuse me  of being Enid Blyton? 

[A Quinn Martin Production]

It's very hard to get stats on number of people wearing the Poppy, which is why 'evidence' is all anecdotal. Mybe this is an indication

In 2006, Northern Ireland raised £885,000 for the appeal. I don't know how much per poppy to give a number sold amount. Also I'm sure it includes non-poppy donations.
In 2006 the overall figure raised by the Legion was 27.7 million. So, the Northern Ireland amount was about 3.2 percent of funds.

Given the fact that NI makes up approx 3% of the population of the UK as well (office of National Statistics for the UK - 2009), it would appear that at face value NI is raising approx it's fair share.

Of course the Caveat here is that in real terms, it's more likely that 1.5% of the population is raising 3% of the funds, but I'm sure a similar deduction could be made for various other groups in the UK that would not buy the Poppy.

anyway, there's a few actual numbers for ye to cogitate on

Where did you get these figures AZO??

[Main Street]

Anecdotal evidence points to more people wear the poppy in NI and for a longer period.
Is that disputed?

[lynchbhoy]

Anecdotal evidence points to more people wear the poppy in NI and for a longer period.
Is that disputed?

apparantly so

for all the diversions that enid is harking back with, as per usual its (intentionally) missing the point that despite how many buy poppies, there are visualy more wearing them in the north of Ireland....but there has been nothing to actualy debunk that fact (as atributed by many observers on here)

[bennydorano]

Kevin Myers had an article in the Belfast Telegraph  a while back, giving off about how rememberance day was fast becoming a remeberance month.  Not like our Kev.

[Evil Genius]

Anecdotal evidence points to more people wear the poppy in NI and for a longer period.
Is that disputed?

All depends whose anecdotes you're talking about. Certainly if it is someone like Lynchbhoy, who clearly feels he can discern a Poppy-wearer's motives without ever even having asked him/her, I wouldn't give it any credibility.

Myself, AZOffally and others have given relevant statistics to back our respective cases, you (and Lynchbhoy et alia) have given only "anecdotal evidence" [sic] to back yours.

Try harder.

[AZOffaly]

It's very hard to get stats on number of people wearing the Poppy, which is why 'evidence' is all anecdotal. Mybe this is an indication

In 2006, Northern Ireland raised £885,000 for the appeal. I don't know how much per poppy to give a number sold amount. Also I'm sure it includes non-poppy donations.
In 2006 the overall figure raised by the Legion was 27.7 million. So, the Northern Ireland amount was about 3.2 percent of funds.

Given the fact that NI makes up approx 3% of the population of the UK as well (office of National Statistics for the UK - 2009), it would appear that at face value NI is raising approx it's fair share.

Of course the Caveat here is that in real terms, it's more likely that 1.5% of the population is raising 3% of the funds, but I'm sure a similar deduction could be made for various other groups in the UK that would not buy the Poppy.

anyway, there's a few actual numbers for ye to cogitate on

Where did you get these figures AZO??

The figures for Poppies sold in 2006 comes from this http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-169972138.html

However, EG, just to clarify something, I'm not making any case, I'm just trying to help contextualise the debate One could argue that with a significant amount of nationalists in NI, then actually the 1.5% of the population that would buy poppies in NI are buying twice as much as their 'fair share'.

But I'm not arguing either way. I just thought it was interesting

[red hander]

Kevin Myers had an article in the Belfast Telegraph  a while back, giving off about how rememberance day was fast becoming a remeberance month.  Not like our Kev.

Lest we forget: free speech is more than a load of poppycock

By Kevin Myers
Friday, 30 October 2009

They started wearing the poppy on the BBC last week, midway through October, nearly a month before Armistice Day. They also ambushed the British National Party leader Nick Griffin.

It was a nice juxtaposition: an organisation which purports to defend free speech then actually used it to set about the destruction of someone that liberal Britain utterly loathes. Moreover, woven throughout whatever passed as discussion on the programme was the assertion that Winston Churchill would not have supported the BNP.

Now if there have been any subsequent doubts in the media about Question Time, they've been on the lines of "why-give-this-man-the-oxygen-of-publicity?" So naturally, every commentator has begun his remarks by pre-emptively — rather pathetically — declaring how much they detest Nick Griffin and the BNP.

It was Nick Griffin who claimed that Churchill, were he alive today, would support the BNP. Oh no he wouldn't, puffed all Griffin's opponents from the conventional parties.

He wouldn't? Which Churchill was this? The imperialist who couldn't be prevented from joining in the Battle of Omdurman, where by his own account he shot several Muslims? Or the imperialist who, 30 years later, led the campaign to deny Indians self-government?

Churchill was the fine fellow who declared that it was "nauseating" to see Ghandi, "a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the Middle East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace . . . to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor".

So, would that same creature have welcomed the subsequent transformation of British cities by Indian immigrants? I somehow doubt it, especially as one of his arguments for Britain retaining India was that Britain was an overcrowded island that needed to trade with the subcontinent. Which is not quite the same thing as allowing much of the sub-continent to move into already crowded British cities.

But the appearance of the poppy in early October, the endless recitation of Churchill's name as an icon of modern liberalism, and the perverse form of "freedom of speech" whose sole purpose was simply to destroy Nick Griffin: they all suggest a critical cultural failure to understand the meaning of any of them. For if freedom of speech is merely seen as a means of doing down someone whom you don't like, then believe me that's what freedom of speech will sooner rather than later become.

The poppy is now an uncontaminated and largely uncontested symbol across Ireland. It is worn by people such as myself solely on the weekend of Remembrance Sunday. It has no other dimension or aspect to it.

But Tony Blair's loathsome New Labour introduced early poppy-wearing as a pre-emptive declaration of national piety: as in, "we might be Labour, but we still are proudly British", et cetera, et cetera. And of course, when a national morality competition is under way, what rival political leader dare refuse to participate? Moreover, it's not surprising that the dilution of Armistice Day into an entire season of meaningless poppy-wearing has coincided with the abandonment by English children of Guy Fawkes night in favour of Halloween.

Both developments were made possible by a general failure of public memory over important cultural events, combined with the creation of rival public rituals by either politicians or by a largely Americanised mass media.

Certainly no politician would have dared to debase the poppy if it still had an authentic currency amongst the broader population. Millions of men once knew that Armistice Day was Armistice Day; and peace only arrived on one day, not over an entire month.

So the modern British poppy is rather like the Christmas tree or the Easter egg. They are artefacts whose origins are so lost in the mists of time that they can easily be turned into tools of the marketing-men, either for commercial or political reasons.

And for New Labour, the symbol of Flanders now provides a useful promotional and populist ploy in the multi-cultural confusion of modern Britain — an uncertain land of poppydom and pappadum, where 'trick or treat' has replaced 'penny for the guy'.

So equally, freedom of speech could well be a casualty of this cultural confusion. For such freedom is not simply a weapon to destroy people you don't like — as demonstrated by the BBC's Question Time and a truly deplorably partisan performance by David Dimbleby. It is the opposite: it is to give people you detest a platform, provided that this freedom is not used to provoke hatred for any group.

And yes, it may insult and |offend people who do not like what they hear; but it must not set about the alienation and victimisation of any group.

This is a lesson we could all learn from. For if we allow freedom of speech primarily to damage people, why, that is like wearing a poppy to celebrate German dead; or celebrating Easter because two thieves were deservedly crucified, or Christmas because the inn was full and the innkeeper was happy.

For if you forget why you do things, then sooner or later you will forget the reason for being what you are.

[magickingdom]

isnt it about time we forgot the frigin wars? its almost 100 years ago since the first world war and we still have to put up with this every year. germany is a huge contributor to the eu yet every year we have the brits going over wearing poppys to remind them of the wars.

for what its worth the brits would be speaking german today if it wasnt for america 

[ardmhachaabu]

isnt it about time we forgot the frigin wars? its almost 100 years ago since the first world war and we still have to put up with this every year. germany is a huge contributor to the eu yet every year we have the brits going over wearing poppys to remind them of the wars.

for what its worth the brits would be speaking german today if it wasnt for america  

[Hereiam]

And so would we....

[Gnevin]

for what its worth the brits would be speaking german today if it wasnt for america 

Yanks are a great impact sub but they don't have a full 70 in them .

[Evil Genius]

isnt it about time we forgot the frigin wars? its almost 100 years ago since the first world war and we still have to put up with this every year.

The Poppy is not a commemoration, never mind a celebration, of various wars. Rather it is a commemoration of those who died in the various wars. Which is why, for example, 1st World War veteran Harry Patch, who came to detest war as a committed pacifist, still felt able to attend Remembrance Day services until he was 104 (and beyond?).

germany is a huge contributor to the eu yet every year we have the brits going over wearing poppys to remind them of the wars.

Bullsh1t - what Brits "go over wearing poppys [sic] to remind them [Germans] of the wars"? 

In fact, unlike a (seemingly depressingly high) number of Irish people, modern Germany demonstrates a highly mature attitude towards former enemies, as the following episode from as recently as last week demonstrates:

Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel take part in the Armistice Day ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Then again, Germans are as aware as anyone else that the Allies liberated them  from the Nazis, too (no thanks to the neutral Irish Free State, btw)

for what its worth the brits would be speaking german today if it wasnt for america 

"for what it's worth"? 
Seeing as it's neither witty, original or even relevant, that comment is like the rest of your post: worthless.

[AZOffaly]

Question re the 'neutral' Irish Free State. Did Ireland intern German U-Boat crews and Luftwaffe crews that ended up in Ireland for the war? And at the same time did they release similar British and American servicemen?

Hardly neutral really.