[Nigel Mace]

Absolutely, Ann - to adapt the Bard - 'a white poppy gratis; nothing else for God's sake'. The Guardian article is spot on and unites me with John (saving your tired old barb about Bannockburn). If you seriously think that Guardian is left-wing, Jayne - let alone a 'rag' - I suspect you should get out more. Above all (save the Rosenberg, of course) I shall certainly remember Andrew's gently killing phrase - "a thimble of memory in a sea of Lethe".

[Bill Carpenter]

I'm puzzled, Nigel, by the intended result of a statement like, "The Guardian is not a left-wing rag." Is it to move the perceived center, for the benefit of both the timid partisan and the low-information voter? Is it to convey a subtle, and perhaps self-flattering threat, that there is a real leftism out there, lurking behind the compromises of the system, that will bring the Revolution when the time is right? It is like the assertion that "Obama is not a liberal." There is clearly some intended payoff for the statement, but I'm not sure what it is.

With respect to poppies, yes, when symbols appear to be corrupted, they present a quandary for people whose intention with respect to the symbol is unchanged. They can go on saying the same thing with it at the risk of being misunderstood or they can stop expressing their intention or use a different symbol for it, alternatives which can also be misunderstood. Plenty of room for hypocrisy and manipulation around corrupted symbols.

[Janice D. Soderling]

This, for instance, by Isaac Rosenberg: ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’

Thank you, Ann. That poem and other are included in the small anthology "First World War Poems" selected by Andrew Motion and published by Faber. I strongly recommend it. Some poems never go out of fashion.

Also there are many lines for reflection in the anthology "Poetry of the Forties" edited by Robin Skelton (Penguin Modern Classics". Such as these lines with a most contemporary feel. The lines are by Alun Lewis in "All Day It Has Rained".

(...)
And we talked of girls, and dropping bombs on Rome
And thought of the quiet dead and the loud celebrities
Exhorting us to slaughter, and the herded refugees.
(...)

Today Sweden began border checks, albeit supposedly temporary and random. On Monday of this week, the flow of asylum seekers into Sweden reached a new record: 2160 in ONE DAY. Of which 741 were children traveling alone, sent by their parents in the hope that they might find a haven.

Even though you may not understand the language, it is enough to look at the video at the top of this link to get a grip on what is happening
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/pa...cle21729680.ab

while elsewhere this is what the long lines of the displaced encounter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungar...er_barrier.jpg

One of our Greek-Swedish authors, Theodor Kallifitides tweeted this:

I really don't understand how the refugee tragedy we are witnessing is a greater problem for us than for all those who are experiencing it.

Jag förstår inte riktigt hur den flyktingstragedi vi bevittnar debatteras som ett större problem för oss än för alla som genomlever den.

Meanwhile, "patriots" influenced by extremist propaganda are burning down the shelters intended for the refugees.

[John Whitworth]

Come on, Nigel. The Guardian is not left wing? Is The Daily Mail right wing? These are descriptive terms, not abuse. The Guardian is not as left wing as Marxism Today. The Daily Mail is not as right wing as whatever the organ of the BNP is called. Would you accept 'left-leaning'. Oh and I'll stop trotting out old canards about the skirmish at Bannockburn when the Scots stop rabbiting on about it.

[Bill Carpenter]

A Renascence

by Robert Graves

White flabbiness goes brown and lean,
Dumpling arms are now brass bars,
They’ve learnt to suffer and live clean,
And to think below the stars.

They’ve steeled a tender, girlish heart,
Tempered it with a man’s pride,
Learning to play the butcher’s part
Though the woman screams inside—

Learning to leap the parapet,
Face the open rush, and then
To stab with the stark bayonet,
Side by side with fighting men.

On Achi Baba’s rock their bones
Whiten, and on Flanders’ plain,
But of their travailings and groans
Poetry is born again.


A Mystic as Soldier

by Siegfried Sassoon

I lived my days apart,
Dreaming fair songs for God;
By the glory in my heart
Covered and crowned and shod.

Now God is in the strife,
And I must seek Him there,
Where death outnumbers life,
And fury smites the air.

I walk the secret way
With anger in my brain.
O music through my clay,
When will you sound again?


.

[Nigel Mace]

You are the only person known to me who goes on about Bannockburn, John - so if you stop....

As to The Guardian's political credentials, I neither think 'left-wing' pejorative, nor accurate.
It once was a consistent shade of warm pink but now is merely pale beige with some fluorescent pink, deep blue and occasional green spots; its purple passages are largely confined to some of its coverage of the visual arts - but it does give some good black ink to Timothy Garton Ash, who remains not only the best but almost the sole reason - book reviews aside - for buying it; well, that and the awfulness of all the English alternatives.

As to remembrance, I always find two things running through my head.

One is a piece of film showing in Britain's cinemas in the autumn of 1938 from Edmund Goulding's outstanding remake of "The Dawn Patrol". Donald Crisp, in his magnificent performance as the Adjutant at the end of the film, as he receives the heroically dead squadron commander's (Errol Flynn) flying helmet and goggles says; "This says that a very brave gentleman died today - and what have all these deaths accomplished, in this war and in the wars that are to come?"

The other is the inscription on the monument at Montemaggiore al Metauro at the spot where Churchill, Alexander and Leese watched the final battle for the Gothic line in August 1944. It records that this battle awakened the memories of that other 'decisive' battle of the Metauro against Hasdrubal over two thousand years previously and regrets that so little has been learned in that time.