9 November 2014

Today is 9.11. - the English 9.11 not the US version. But both signify remembrance for the fallen, for the UK it being the nearest Sunday to the 11th min of the 11th hour of the 11th month.  UK media commemorations and red poppies abound, but here in France?  The 'bleuet' bluebell actually precedes the poppy tradition, remembering the blue cloth produced by wounded soldiers from WW1 in Les Invalides in Paris. Poppies remember the dead; les bleuets remember the wounded. But where are les bleuets around here? Forgotten, it seems. The EU should serve to remind everyone that for 70 years there's been no war in Europe, and that's the reason it should stay and increase. No tinpot country killing people from another tinpot country for stupid land-grab reasons. If I had my way I'd stop all films showing the 'vicarious thrills' of one man killing another. To take another's life force away, or glory in it, is not a thrill but an abomination. So, at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, that's what I will be thinking: commemorate life!