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While we forget

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In solemn tones, the BBC coverage from the Cenotaph tomorrow will remind us that we're remembering all those fallen in wars. This year, I'm not buying it. I've worn a poppy in November of every year I can remember. But the last couple of years I've found it difficult to square the display with my conscience. Not because I've suddenly awoken to the horrors of war - I don't agree with those who claim Remembrance is a glorification of violence, although there are certainly those who see it that way - but because of a growing suspicion that Remembrance has come to mask the very thing of which it's supposed to remind us. That feeling has grown from the everyday news from Ukraine since February 2022. There is a war going on in Europe. It's being fought in trenches, in conditions very similar to those in the first half of the last century. It's claimed perhaps half a million lives so far, with many Ukrainian civilians among them - many more th...
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Two down

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“I think that’s a wolf coming.” Caddick snorted. “This is Hampstead Heath. One does not see wolves on Hampstead Heath. At least, not the four-legged kind.” Lyle continued “And Aunt Anna always warned us to watch out for wolves.” “Aunt Anna – God bless her soul and spätzle – grew up in Baden where, as you know perfectly well, there live many things not to be found in Golders Green. Pass the digestives. Thanks.” Lyle fished distractedly under the bench for the Thermos. “It is rather shaggy.” “And many other things are shaggy,” the acid barely diluted. “Woolly mammoths are shaggy, but a woolly mammoth is not a wolf. You yourself are shaggy, and you score over both wolf and mammoth in often being seen on Hampstead Heath. Anyway, it's a dog.” An icy gust hid the face of the Chancellor, exposed the half-finished crossword. “Disturbing to confuse sin with virtue,” intoned Caddick. “I only said it looks like a wolf,” Lyle objected. “No, eleven across, ‘Disturbing to confuse sin w...
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