Whatever you think about poppy wearing you are wrong.

Even if you have a PhD in fashion biology and have spent the past 27 years writing about the family Papaveraceae you are still wrong.  I know this because I have a blog.

Both of my grandfathers fought in World War II.  Because I was young when they died I have no meaningful memories of them, which arguably gives me no closer a connection to them than you have…but, in a larger sense, doesn’t it justify any old nonsense I want to write?

They fought for and, much later, died for my right to build straw-men, and it would be a bitter insult to the memory of them that I barely have not to do so!

I read an A J P Taylor book once and, on this, the centenary of one of the years in the First World War – the great war that birthed the greatest generation who birthed the generation who birthed The Generation Game – I wonder if, in 100 years time, we’ll be remembering the youth who, year in, year out, urinates on a war memorial.

I don’t think so.

But perhaps we should…because of freedom.

Maybe, in the 2016 poppy war we should all take a moment to reflect that, for many, the greatest tragedy is non sequitur, ad hominem, #MakesYouThink.

Until next year, then.