Be Excellent To Each Other

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Ah silence inflation. Didn't everyone do this on Sunday?

It's traditional to do both, is it not?

Possibly, but it's meant to be the eleventh hour, etc.

And at least this is a worthy cause, as it were.

Oh fuck off, would you.

- Note I waited till 11:03.

Much kudos, old dudes.

Especially the RAF guy, insisting on putting down his own wreath even though he's wheelchair bound and over a hundred years old.

People were still phoning our office, and the two youngest people seemed to have no clue what was going on, and happily nattered away.

I've done my time on remembrance day. Every cunting year during school I marched in the school band on every freezing fucking Remembrance Sunday. We marched while playing Semper Fidelis.

I miss being in a proper office for this, I remember one year the fire alarm went off to signify the start of the silence and this one guy, who was on the phone to a customer, just panicked and slammed the phone down.

I just told someone off who burst into our room asking for something halfway through.

I'm not in my office this year but I can't remember anything last year or the year before.

One year when I was at college during the silence we all halted in the corridor outside the refectory. At that moment, the Pot Noodle machine decided to shout "Help, help me, I'm a man in a suit!".

You have no idea how much we struggled to not start giggling, but silent we stayed. I'm not one for religion or tradition, but this is something that I can respect, if not exactly relate to.

My scottish Grandfather was a piper during WW2. The nutcase and his nutcase piper mates would find the highest point on the battlefield and play the bagpipes with a scottish flag tied to their backs before and while the scots attacked. Bullet magnet much?

The only time he ever played after that was at the funerals of the other members of his piper squadron (probably not the right word) - they would all follow the coffin down the aisle playing a traditional scottish rememberance song that I forget the name of.

When my grandfather died, there was only one piper left to play him down the aisle. In possibly the only properly "good" thing we've ever done in our lives, my brother and I learned to play to song and did the same for him (he was called Dhugal) when he died.

Thanks grandad Frank and all the rest
x

You ignorant fuck.

Fuck you, quite frankly. I never had to go to them, but I chose to go many services and perform for the assembled crowd and stand in remembrance on cold November mornings and you're calling me an ignorant fuck?

Don't forget Comical, 4 minutes is the exact right amount of silence. Any more is not required, but a second less and you're disrespecting Britain!

If you think you've "done your time", then yes.

Tell you what - next year, why don't you go along to the Cenotaph and yell that at the assembled veterans? They clearly need educating.

There's cynicism and then there's just being an insensitive smart-arse for the sake of getting a reaction.

Sorry Gnomes, but to say having been to a few services compares with what the WWI veterans went through is a bit churlish, to say the least.

That's the way it comes across, anyway.

I forgot all about this. I've got a poppy, though.

Well it isn't. It was MOVED to the Sunday in 1939 to avoid productivity loss. Breaking a work day for it as well is no more than a decade old and coincides with my actual point, that of silence inflation where your pet cause is too good for a 1 minute so you have 2.... or 3....



But 4 minutes silence a year does compare?

No, but I don't think many people think it does.

It's a simple mark of respect.

So why is that any less "Ignorant fuck" than Comical's, who's made more effort than a lifetime of 2/4 minutes.

EDIT : I just don't think it remotely justified that vitriol.

It's more the point of keeping remembering I think Duds imo, rather than just saying 'I did 14 hours or so and that'll tide me over nicely'

No, but it's a time for us to remember them. To say, 'I've done my time', inferring that you've had enough of remembering them is a bit insensitive, especially to those on here who had relatives who fought and died to keep us in booze and butter.

Exactly as that was my point also

Of course I respect the sacrifice made by millions of men and women in WWI, but as Dudley alluded, having a mandated time of silence at a specific time once a year is an entirely optional thing. I do seriously rebel against an opinion that failing to be silent at a specific time and date somehow constitutes and insult to people who died. People can do it if they like, but you can fuck off with your righteous attitude about what should be done and when. I'll pay my respects in my own way at a time and in a manner of my own choosing.

By saying I did my time, I mean I've made my contribution to the service over the years, and don't feel terribly bad about sitting at home on the Sunday closest to the 11th of November every year from here on out.

Well that's very very different. I thought (as did we all, I think (unintentional BS:G moment)) that you thought you didn't owe the veterans anything because walking in the cold was comparable.
I was wondering.

I didn't think that.

Mostly Com's post, with the addition that I hate poppy fascism. Th number of complaints the BBC gets anytime they don't drape every single piece of output in it for several weeks is astonishing. They had a large one next to the time on the sodding WEATHER this year ffs. If and when I've contributed to any charity I don't feel the need to go thrusting that in everyone's face and neither should the presenters on the BBC be effectively force to.

Oh God, this. If people want to wear them they shouldn't be stopped, but if they don't, well, they don't.

This is why it's good to clarify things before storming on in calling people ignorant fucks, you risk making yourself look very silly. Given this is supposed to be an intelligent forum of intelligent people, it's the reaction I'd not expect to see first.

I don't wear a poppy, but I do give money

This country is at risk of being so caught up in the tradition and protocol of the event that the whole point is almost missed.

Can't blame me if you said one thing and meant another. If we all waited for 'clarification' nothing would ever get said.

Yeah, which is why I said, 'it's how it came across', rather than what he actually meant.

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Is it 4 minutes now? Thats one for each of the living veterans. I can give them that. (Though I only did one minute)

I find it staggering that there are people alive who lived in the 19th century. If mankind had a better grasp of time then I think we behave better as a species. Thats why stuff like this is so important.

The oldest one is 113. If the people he meets today tell that story when they are 113 then that direct touch of the story will have lasted 200 years. 2114 and 1914 separated by only one person. It boogles the mind.

I don't really mention it because people just put it down to my atheism, but I really don't like using the BC/AD calendar. I think we should have a date system that goes back as far as the first known civilisation (roughly at least). Dates and things like 11.11.11 really bring home how short the little experiment that is the human race has been.

Ah yes, quite unreasonable of me to blame you for your overreaction, really. What was I thinking?

Well, was it an overreaction? I haven't clarified exactly what I meant by it, yet.

Sigh.

He, like the wife's great great aunt, has lived in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries!

I disagree with the vast majority of minute silences (and silence inflation, as Duds put it) but the one for Remembrance Day is one I will always be behind. Despite none of my family actually being killed/injured in war, it's just respectful for the many millions of people that have died fighting to preserve the freedoms that we (and seemingly, our Government ) take foregranted.

To be fair, this is what happened:

• You said something a bit insensitive
• Grim... reacted angrily
• You clarified your comments
• Grim... said, 'Phew, ok then'

I'm not sure he'd have reacted the same way if you'd explained things a bit better.

If everyone can chill out, I recommend this thoughtful article on the hundreds of soldiers who died in WWI between the armistice being signed (at about 5am) and coming into force (at 11am). The poor, poor guys.

Oh, and I must admit I'm not wearing a poppy this year, although I've plonked a few donations in the tins. I always end up stabbing myself on the damned pin; one year I'll remember to go buy a safety pin.

Consider this. The Gunfight at the OK Corral was in 1881 -- only a little over thirty years before the start of WWI.

That's fair, I would have reacted in the same way as Grim...as you didn't explain what you meant very well

Yes, there was a documentary about that last week. It was very sad indeed. I then watched Hislop's doc last night on 4 about the conscientious objectors. Also quite sad, in its own way.