Then he stopped wearing his poppy. I asked him why, and he said that he didn't want to see "so many damn fools" wearing it – he was a provocative man and, sadly, I fell out with him in his old age. What he meant was that all kinds of people who had no idea of the suffering of the Great War – or the Second, for that matter – were now ostentatiously wearing a poppy for social or work-related reasons, to look patriotic and British when it suited them, to keep in with their friends and betters and employers. These people, he said to me once, had no idea what the trenches of France were like, what it felt like to have your friends die beside you and then to confront their brothers and wives and lovers and parents. At home, I still have a box of photographs of his mates, all of them killed in 1918.

(Robert Fisk)

The poppy crop was early this year. Usually it's the 1st November that the BBC orders its well-trained employees to sport the symbol of dead soldiery, and none dare disobey. But this year the last week of October was the starting point for unthinking and uncaring commemoration. Sky News too heard the bugle call to go over the top and adorn suits and dresses with the free handout. If only one individual demurred and appeared onscreen without a poppy we might believe that some thought had gone into the wearing. But no, verboten
I walked round town today and saw not one person sporting a poppy, only some old geezers in berets, medals on chests, manning a stall full of poppies and collecting boxes, but devoid of customers.
The hard sell isn't working in this burg.