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???

when hundreds of people are still dying everyday
10,000 people die every week in the UK
every year
Winter flu 2014/15 killed 36,000

The word 'bunting' sends shivers down my spine

What happened to “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die”?

Take part in a VE street party and you may well find out.
Because after a few drinks to celebrate something most people know very little about, social distancing will vanish.

Love a bit of bunting. (But won,t be having a street party.)

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

Derxa Are you really saying that the Scots Welsh & NI aren't ecstatic at England winning the world cup? and there was me thinking we were a United kingdom lol.

Try answering the the points raised.

I'm fed up with all these initiatives to get out and do things with your neighbours like the Big Lunch or whatever it was called and now all this street party nonsense. We don't all live in happy, peaceful cul-de-sacs. My neighbours are aggressive, anti social bigots who leave piles of rubbish out in the street and intimidate anyone who complains. There is also be charming drug dealer in our street and I live in a fairly "naice" area, far away from an inner city. So all this street party stuff can never be possible for me. Also, I grew up in the 70s and 80s and don't remember ever hearing about VE Day, VJ Day. All I remember is the Silver Jubilee and Royal weddings. Did nobody celebrate it then?

@jasjas1973 is so right.

Anyway I'll be celebrating VJ Day on August 15th as my Grandad was still fighting the forgotten war in Burma on VE Day & his mates were still being killed by the Japanese.
He felt very bitter about the whole thing... especially as Burma gained its freedom from Japan and Independence from the UK only to become a state ruled by a Military Junta.
What a waste of his comrades' lives.

Yanbu but there are many more nationalistic types around than you’d guess.

It does seem wrong to celebrate anything loudly when the number of NHS staff alone that have died is 167 & rising, when up to
60 000 people have died and more will die from covid.
I think we should give thanks quietly if we wish on VE Day but it's in poor taste to have street parties.

He felt very bitter about the whole thing... especially as Burma gained its freedom from Japan and Independence from the UK only to become a state ruled by a Military Junta

I was also quite surprised to hear on Michael Portillo's Great Asian Railway Journeys that the Burma railway was torn up at the end of the war. All that loss of life for nothing. At least it could have been used in peacetime.

Surely you can avoid it by just staying inside

[Takes a big breath] the point is, if people are having a party right outside your house it is (a) impossible to avoid and (b) unlikely that you can go out to the shops/work/daily exercise.

Some roads are quite wide and the houses are reasonably well spaced but some roads are really cramped especially on the newer estates.

I really can't understand why people can't comprehend that people having a party outside your front door when you don't want to be involved is intrusive and coercive. Stay in your back gardens or do what I already suggested, wait until VJ day and hire a hall or celebrate in a park.

Not for me at all. The whole schedule personally makes me shudder and cringe.

If it makes others happy then that’s up to them. I’ll be annoyed if I have to put up with excess noise because of it though.

Oh @cologne get over yourself. Your neighbours are perfectly entitled to celebrate and you'll just have to shop or exercise at a different time. I'm sure the concept of others doing things that mildly inconvenience you isnt a new one.

60 000 people have died and more will die from covid.
scare mongering much

So people haven't died?

We’re doing it and can’t wait. Nobody’s enforcing on you. Just don’t do it if you don’t like it ffs.

@Terralee

Our Grandparents would have a very different idea of celebrating VE day.

I think even the ONS have said around 40k have died and other statisticians have said 47k.

Many go out every thursday to cheer the NHS so having a celebration on the very next day, with this as the backdrop is in bad taste, imagine grieving a loved parent/partner/child etc maybe an NHS worker? whilst 1/2 the street are having a knees up over something that happened 75 years ago.

That's exactly what I said upthread. There will be 100,000 households out there who are grieiving a friend, a sister, brother, mum, dad, relation... yet let's hang out the bunting and have a jolly old knees up

What about those people? I know someone who has died (not a person close to me personally, but very close to two people I know well). I don't suppose they'll feel like having a jolly will they? And this will apply to a huge amount of people across the country.

TBH I find it crass.

The thought of a street singalong makes me cringe. I agree the concept of all sorts of jollity whilst the families of 35K people are grieving is just crass.

60 000 people have died and more will die from covid
scare mongering much

That's what people said when 20,000 deaths were projected.

Learn the diference between patriotism and nationalism, people. It will serve you well
It's also a very fine line from one to the other.

No. We didn’t celebrate VE Day or VJ Day. It was mentioned on the news. Usually some old pictures and a quick resume of what it meant for citizens and the armed forces. We remembered those who died on 11 November and on Remembrance Sunday. We were taught about 20th century wars at school but only if it was in the history curriculum. Otherwise parents and grandparents told you what it was like.

Big celebrations are a new phenomenon. They seem to happen all the time and it devalues them.

they commemorating ve day in 2015, 70 years after the event, in 1995, 50 years after the event, and tbh I can't find anything about 1970,

it is obviously going to be markedly low key this time!

The appropriateness of celebrating during coronavirus aside, I just can’t separate VE Day celebrations from Brexit in my mind. The War has become part of the national myth: because we were on the winning side 75 years ago that means we don’t need European cooperation now, we don’t need to listen to experts, we can piss off all our neighbours and cripple our economy. But that’s ok, because we’ve got the Blitz Spirit and fucking bunting. Hooray, Britain is great!
Caveat: I know not everyone who wants to celebrate VE Day is pro-Brexit but that shortsighted nationalism is obviously common enough or we wouldn’t have ended up where we are, and it leaves a nasty taint.

It's bad enough with VD day every Thursday. Who knew that in 2020 it would be considered patriotic to give essential workers the clap?