to be fed up with the 'competitive poppying' I've seen this year...

[Alwaysworthchecking]

...and to blame it mainly on Facebook?

For the record, I'm happy to wear a poppy and FB often makes me laugh. However, I'm truly fed up with people telling me they are 'attending' the two minute silence (not a particular one - just the concept) and exhorting me to do likewise, complete with precise instructions. It's hardly rocket science, is it? Just shut yer gob for 2 mins!

Then there are the people asking me 'Put a Poppy on my Profile Pic' and the people adding a white poppy 'for peace' to theirs. I thought a red poppy served that purpose?

I find myself mourning the days when you just bought a poppy, wore it, hoped the pin didn't stab you too often, and observed the silence - well, silently! All this bloody contrived earnestness is driving me up the wall!

I hate it, but that's because it's my birthday.
I have had 'remember the fallen' etc all my life on my birthday.
TV is dire on my birthday.
It really gets to me.

Was going to disagree with you when I read the title but being sent FB instructions on how to observe a 2 minutes silence in patronising in the extreme and most fucking annoying.

I think the white poppy does mean something different though - it's to do with being anti-war (which is a concept I always struggle with because in reality aren't most people - excluding George W. Bush and a couple of choice others - anti-war?)

But actually having read your post, YANBU, in most cases, I fear it is poppies for poppies sake and not because people are actually honouring soldiers.

Terrible that your birthday is spoiled by remembering the thousands of war dead, poor you.

Always. Can't you just ignore them?

I do exactly as you mourn for. I buy a poppy, then another when I lose or break it. Then am quiet for 2 minutes even, as this year i was at home alone that day.

i hate the fact there needs to be a day to remember the fallen.

i also got into trouble for doing the 2 minute silence..apparently as i am young i was using it as an excuss for an extended break

"I fear it is poppies for poppies sake and not because people are actually honouring soldiers"

and sailors and airmen and women too

Sorry Saltire - you are right, should have said armed forces

wow

does this REALLY bug you?

but you buy poppies? And you don't want people to talk about what it represents? How odd.

YANBU - Everything these days has to be so blatent and in your face. The 2 minute silence does not need to be over complicated by the likes of facebook.

Also since when did every bloody person on tv and in politics have to start wearing a poppy at least 3 weeks before 11/11? Not so long ago you bought your poppy the week before and wore it until the 11th or Rememberence Sunday.

I always buy a poppy and observe the 2 minute silence and don't feel the need to be given instructions by anyone on how to do this.

RoobyMurray that's a good point but I didn't make myself clear (for which I apologise - sorry). I am quite happy for people to talk about what it represents and I'm perfectly at ease with the special services and programming to draw more attention to the significance of the poppies. I do think having a day to remember people killed in war is a valid idea and I support that.

What bugs me is the feeling I've got this year that some people seem to want to be seen doing the right thing because of how that makes them look. It seems to me to be an extension of all the self-publicising and 'open grieving' that seems to be in vogue just now. I don't mean genuine, personal grief which, frankly, people should be allowed to get on with as they see fit; I mean our society's apparent need to jump on any grief bandwagon.

I should add that I do not see Remembrance services, parades or wreath-laying as an example of that! I also acknowledge that all this is just my opinion and therefore as likely to be flawed as the opinions of those I've just ranted about. Funnily enough though, I just don't find my own opinions as annoying.

Also I really don't think I need step-by-step instructions on how to observe a 2 minute silence. It was that particular fb posting that acted as the straw on this camel's back.

Techlovingdad, that is sound advice. I should, I know, I really should!

must be very hard for you Bunty...your birthday falling on the same day that we remember the thousands that died for us during the war.
you poor, poor thing.

Sorry SkeletonFlowers. You should indeed feel free to put a poppy on your profile/your jacket/your sig/whereever, without the likes of me making you feel in any way awkward about that. It's not the poppies I object to - far from it - it's the people who exhorted me to do likewise.

Just as you chose to wear a virtual poppy as well as the paper one (And why not? Good on you!) and you don't want to be hassled about it, I want to wear a paper one and not be hassled about that.

I don't feel threatened by general poppy-wearing, I simply feel fed up with being told what I should feel, when I should feel it and how I should express it.

And of course I am being partly unreasonable - these people are all as entitled to their opinion as I am to mine... I just wish they would be less eager to share it with me. (Like I've done here - ha - I can see the slight hypocrisy of my ranting.)

but that is just facebook isn't it? I didn't have anyone posting any poppy stuff, but then I keep my fb fairly minimal and if anyone posts stuff I can't be doing with --> delete.

Rooby, you are far more sensible than I am.

I totally agree with Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Fry's article which was published in Times/Scotsman last week. I'm waiting for 'Celebrity Armistice' which I'm sure is just around the corner. Armistice day more than any other national day should be observed with dignity, not mawkish sentiment.

www.scotsman.com/news/LtGen39s-unease-at-39mawkish39.6625118.jp

YANBU. much like all the awareness campaigns, implying that you must be in favour of cancer unless you state otherwise.

I particularly hate the designer poppies which resemble some kind of prom corsage.

It's not a fashion statement you daft bint.

yanbu at all about the facebook guilt tripping on this and other issues.

We ahould be allowed to remember-we should make space in our 'busy' lives to create space for remembering why we are able to live in relative freedom. I was upset yesterday that the names of those fallen from our community in any war were not read out......how will our children learn to remember, to respect, to be be thankful for those that made a huge personal sacrifice.....

I too dread the day when celebrity jumps in on the act.....

I wear my poppy and observe the 2 minutes silence every year, both days. I do not put stuff on my FB profile about it though like "Remember the soliders who have given their lives for us.... copy and paste to your profile if you really appreiciate this... if you don't then your a callous bastard and will rot in hell...." or whatever it is they tend to say. I do appreiciate what all those people did, but adding a smug status update means nothing imo.

Almost every single person in the shop I work in kept their gobs shut for the entire 2 minutes. Only 2 old ladies and a young guy jabbering away on his phone didn't (he was jabbering away in a foreign language though to be fair, so possibly didn't understand the announcement). That was irritating. What was more irritating was the people "sshhhhing" eachother though. Just as bad as those who carried on talking.

I found it had got to hysterical levels this year particularly as well to be honest. I don't ever like it when people are basically being forced into making gestures (see the Jon Snow poppy-gate stuff etc) and being bashed for not doing so - I never wear a poppy until a couple of days before the 11th, never have done - purely because it gets lost, gets crumpled and looks a total dogs breakfast by then... yet this year you seem to be some kind of evil sociopath if you hadn't got one tattooed to your forehead by November the 1st!

It's ALWAYS been covered in schools - even the very little kids know that we wear poppies to remember all the soldiers who died in wars and we stop and have some quiet thinking time - and even 4 year olds can manage to do this (not always pushed to the full 2 minutes mind you!) without step by step facebook instructions!

My own particular bug is a friend from school who uses the fact her hubby's in the army as the get out of any argument free card to digusting levels. We're talking FB spats of the content:
X is off to Tescos
...someone comments "oh I prefer Sainsburys"
...X hysterically replies "My husband's a brave soul in the ARMY and you're telling me I picked the wrong supermarket - don't you realize he's in the army!!!"
...and it goes on like this every single bloody day over anything.

at your friend emptyshell that kind of martyrdom would do my head in.

We always did the 2 minutes silence in school very few children played up, if they did never did it again! It is important to teach our children what happened and why.

As for Jon Snow, I don't agree with his stance myself but if he chooses to not wear a poppy that is his right. ironic really.

Jon Snow if I believe the interview wording correctly actually wears one on the 11th and the Sunday - but refuses to succumb to the wearing one for the entire month of November thing that's snowballed in recent years.

I just hate the whole publicly demanded grief, it sprung up over Diana, it sprung up over Jade Goody and now it seems to have latched with mawkish obsession onto the armed forces - demanding more grief, more grief, more grief in quite an uncomfortable way. The e-hysteria on Facebook etc (and drummed up by particularly the Daily Mail - as usual) has snowballed into some poppy covered monstrosity feeding off emotion and it's in massive contrast to the veterans on TV on Sunday which is much more of a touching gesture than any of the silly status updates and their ilk.

Perhaps I'm just a cynic who doubts the world gets changed if 93% of the world actually pasted something someone's cobbled together when they should have been doing the monthly spreadsheet at work into their FB status update.

This year has been different. There has been quite a few high profile cases where people have burnt poppies or put up anti-poppy banners at football matches (Celtic).

There has been a lot of discussion on fb as well as the media about this. So my view is because of this there has been a definite surge in public support for the poppy and all it represents.

For that reason YABU.