I don't write when I am in London as the computer is in the childrens flat, (which is like the upstairs of our flat but with a kitchen and separate front door). I imagine that they will press that symbol which shows you the last 20 sites you've looked at and see Iris Storm edit. So I never write about London things which is a bit odd.

I was in the local supermarket this morning, which is actually twenty miles away. I was just rushing towards the organic potatoes when a voice boomed 'It is now 11.00, please stand still for the 2 minutes silence and reflect on those who gave their lives for us'. I was so taken by surprise that I skidded to a halt right in the middle and had to stand there, unmoving, the fixed point for everyone else's gaze. I started with a casual expression but after a while ( 2 minutes is really long) began to actually visualise people in trenches and sons never coming home and poppy fields blowing in the wind and had a horrific feeling that I might cry. Thank God that did not happen, partly as I have a memory of an old cartoon which I retrieve when crying is not an option. It is a drawing of a really sleazy-looking tiger leaning forward saying, 'So....what immortal hand or eye framed THY fearful symmetry, Baby?'.

On the News today they were saying that the Remembrance Day interest had waned a bit until recently when we had suddenly had a lot more wars and it had become 'relevant' again. The BBC have become so obssesive about poppy-wearing that they put one on a newsreader half way through his broadcast and when they saw that the presenter of a film reviewing programme hadn't worn one, they added it to his jacket DIGITALLY. As the programme lasted for an hour it soon became transfixingly obvious that it wasn't real. How often does that kind of thing happen? I can't remember about the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Did they choose to end the War at that moment or was it a bizarre coincidence?
- posted by Iris @ 11/11/2003 10:44:00 PM comment