What fresh hell is this? National VE day

[wetpants]

This has popped up on my local FB page, villagers are all up for it too. Apparently it’s a nationwide incentive??

The thing is, most front gardens are tiny or non existent here. There’s no way you could be 2m away from your next door. Also these villagers who are up for this are the same people who few weeks ago cried about a lone bloke sitting on a crass verge, well away from any pedestrians. How is this any different?

I’m not British (have lived here a long time though) so maybe I’m just not getting the fervent VE day misty eyeness

And don’t get me started on 9pm nationwide singalong WHO comes up with these things???

Have any of you looked at the VE Day websites? They originally had a whole programme of events planned for the whole weekend, which obviously now can't happen. Instead of cancelling it altogether they've come up with an alternative, which isn't compulsory.

I left the UK about 15 years ago.

I hardly recognise it now.

The jingoism is new.

Aside from royal weddings, which weren't expected to be of interest to everyone (I remember Charles and Diana's wedding street parties but they were for primary school children and the kind of person who collects commemorative mugs...) there was never any jingoistic red white and blue compulsory in your face patriotism that I remember.

What happened? WSit sometime around the 2008 recession? Why? How? It's quite disturbing.

Living Oban island. Who is dictating?

@CoolCarrie My grandad was/is my hero, he survived the Battle of Jutland, his ship HMS Marlborough limped back after being hit by a torpedo.
He saw ships sunk with the loss of over a 1000 men from one ship.

He always told me to look forward, learn from the past but don't live in it but time and time again the British wallow in WW1 and 2, much like they do with 1966 and football.
He also told me don't stick a garden fork through your foot when gardening.... i never knew why he said that! lol!

I don't need some stupid tea party to remember what he and his generation gave (or what the SOE did or for that matter my great uncle in Burma who died in 1943 there.

Well if you left 15 years ago you will remember the street parties with the golden Jubileee right.

I’m really looking forward to VE Day and VJ Day in August too .... me too, with knobs on.

june2007 I just googled when that was. I was in the UK but no, I don't remember street parties or anything else golden jubilee related at all.

but time and time again the British wallow in WW1 and 2, much like they do with 1966 and football. More proof as if it was needed that some people can't distinguish between England and the UK.

I don't remember any street parties for the golden jubilee.
I think the whole "forced patriotism" began with people calling out others for not wearing poppies to be honest.

It's just another thing for the Tory press to latch onto, like Captain Tom, anything to divert attention away from the Government's dismal performance.

There were endless street parties for both the Silver and Golden Jubilees. I remember the 1977 celebrations particularly well as I came out of hospital after a stay in ITU to see them everywhere.

There were street parties for the Silver Jubilee in 1977. It was all very 'Stranger Things' as us older kids got on our bikes and hid in the woods until it was over. The phrase "Stuff Your Jubliee" was trending as we then did not call it.

There were loads of street parties for the golden jubilee.

We surely won't be having much in the way of social celebration if lockdown continues and it will for a while.

I like the bread and circuses comments.

Fiddling whilst Rome burns.

BJ would make an excellent Nero

YetiAnotherNameChange I'm glad you don't either.

Perhaps it depends where you live... Some areas have always been big royalty fans I guess. I was living in North London in 2002.

I don't remember seeing any big outpourings of red white and blue fever between Charles and Diana's wedding when I was still at school, and then when I visited my parents in 2012, when I couldn't believe how the UK had changed and become so jingoistic.

Oh yes those wonderful Russian soldiers who on overthrowing the Germans raped tens of thousands of German women, many times multiple time and caused the death of thousands too!

It doesn't pass the granddad test. If I asked my granddad he would have been fine with the two minutes silence, wouldn't have understood why it had to be in public, and would have thought the rest was nationalistic, jingoistic bullshit.

I shudder to think what he would have made of Boris, considering what he thought of Thatcher. We feared for his health when she came on the telly. He loved Europe though.

I don't remember anything for the Golden Jubilee, I thought it was too wet that summer to do anything. I do remember the Silver Jubilee, I was 5. I was in fancy dress and it was cold.

I also went to the Bridgewater carnival when I was a similar age and it was really cold. Maybe those two events, and being really cold, are the reason I hate carnivals and forced jollity.

I’m simply not bothering I don’t care won’t be watching anything on tv either.

Oh actually I am thinking of the Diamond Jubilee in terms of the rainy summer. I think I was overseas for the Golden Jubilee.

So if you don't want to, don't, but don't try and dictate what other people choose to do

The problem is the other way round, as so many of us on this thread have tried to explain. If you are all out in the street, we cannot avoid your party.

Whereas if you waited until VJ day you might be able to hire a hall and have your party there, and invite those who want to celebrate with you, rather than forcing the issue on your street.

Jingoistism has been championed by some newspapers. It has seeped into society. It was certainly mentioned time and time again in the Brexit debate by older people who categorically believed GB was better at everything and we had been held back by others.

The days after ww2 were not great for many. In the intervening years we have become more involved with war and death because of a constant news stream. We heard commentaries from reporters during the Falklands War. We knew the names of every dead soldier in Afghanistan because each individual was named every day on the news and called a hero. We didn’t have this info in WW2. People didn’t speak about their grief and experiences in the same way. A roll call of dead servicemen and women wasn’t read out each day. In fact it was hushed up. We didn’t hear from bereaved families.

We now have a very different approach to death and glory. We big up roles we took for granted as normal before. We supported the armed services and nurses but stopped short of everyone being a “hero” which has now list resonance and meaning.

We need, as a nation, to reflect, and not keep banging the hero drum and at the same time, tone down the jingoistic rhetoric.

@andratuttobene I can't help it if I'm shy and not very sociable. I'm autistic. I have a lot of trouble reading cues, facial expressions etc. I'm also very paranoid due to having been hurt a lot in the past by so-called friends. I don't think I'm superior.

Let me make it clear: I'm not against people celebrating, and I can see that it would be fun for kids or veterans. But I live on my own, I have no-one to celebrate with. I mean, I've spent my whole life having a huge complex about being 'normal'. Is having a party on your own a normal thing to do?