Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:04 am  

Mintball wrote:

I assume you'll be calling for all bankers and financiers to donate a days pay too?

And returning to the sporting theme, golfers, tennis players and F1 drivers too?

You're onto a winner there, yes why not ?

Its one thing to ask the general population to dip into their pockets and chuck a quid in a tin, but a giant leap forward to ask those who would not notice one days worth of their fees to donate such and maybe gain a bit of free publicity for the charity and themselves too.

Very good idea, I do hope you weren't being sarcastic.

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 9:08 am  

On a general charity thing I have always been of the opinion that if you do one thing per year, pick one charity to support, then you have the automatic right to smile at the tin-wavers at the supermarkets and say a polite "no thank you" as I do - I already gave this year.

Sign up for one of those £2 a month standing orders (or usually a fiver now) or do an event once a year and feel the smug satisfaction of having done your bit.

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:23 am  

McLaren_Field wrote:

Which is a very nice poem, but to be very brutally honest is also an emotional drum-rapping patriotic litany of nonsense written at a time when people were looking for explanations to the most horrific four years in human history and yet trying to avoid the obvious explanations that so-called "leaders" and "betters" had completely failed them - there is no glory in being dead and there is certainly no glory at having bits of you scattered far and wide across a muddy landscape just because one of your "betters" said it should be so.

there re edit for you I was in the forces and ive seen death ive seen kids in Bosnia butchered in playgrounds. my main point is to remember my comrades brothers to the grave. i came home wounded and surrounded by body bags in a aircraft. i will never forget the horrors i saw. im didn't post it to critical analysis or intellectual debate about the poem. ok it may be a flag waver but i remember the fallen not the poem

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 12:54 pm  

another fine mess wrote:

there re edit for you I was in the forces and ive seen death ive seen kids in Bosnia butchered in playgrounds. my main point is to remember my comrades brothers to the grave. i came home wounded and surrounded by body bags in a aircraft. i will never forget the horrors i saw. im didn't post it to critical analysis or intellectual debate about the poem. ok it may be a flag waver but i remember the fallen not the poem

As most people do and as I will be doing on Friday and Sunday.

Its a nice poem and its now used in a totally different context to when it was written and to be honest until I looked it up I hadn't realised that it was written in a different context to what it is used now - you might argue that we live now and so the only context that counts is our context and that because we only use it as a poem to remember the fallen then thats its only use.

However I'm sure that you, with all of your experiences will be the first to admit that war is not a glorious thing and not something to be promoted as a worthy thing for a young man/woman to sacrifice themselves for particularly on a scale that existed when the poem was written - it was written to justify the mayhem that was already becoming apparent as being something honorable for a young man to die for - I'm sure that you in particular wouldn't want to see a return to that sort of attitude ?

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 1:06 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

You're onto a winner there, yes why not ?

Its one thing to ask the general population to dip into their pockets and chuck a quid in a tin, but a giant leap forward to ask those who would not notice one days worth of their fees to donate such and maybe gain a bit of free publicity for the charity and themselves too.

Very good idea, I do hope you weren't being sarcastic.

Not particularly, no.

I would say that I find the obsession (not having a dig at you personally, BTW) with footballers' renumeration is, I think, a diversion – and a class thing. You just don't hear the same whinges about those playing the other sports I mentioned, which just happen to be considerably more middle class. For that matter – and maintaining the entertainments theme – you could say the same of Hollywood and rock stars: I can't recall a conversation where I've heard their money being slammed so widely.

Apologies for the slight drift, but I do remember that, up until at least 12 years ago (when I stopped being a sports hackette), the Times published an annual list of the best paid sportsmen/women. No women ever featured – and nor, at that time, did any footballer. On a number of occasions, one Will Carling made the list, though.

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 1:14 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Apologies for the slight drift, but I do remember that, up until at least 12 years ago (when I stopped being a sports hackette), the Times published an annual list of the best paid sportsmen/women. No women ever featured – and nor, at that time, did any footballer. On a number of occasions, one Will Carling made the list, though.

I think there must be some mistake surely

Mr Carling did not play in the professional era and made no earnings from the game at all, absolutely not

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 1:15 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

I think there must be some mistake surely

Mr Carling did not play in the professional era and made no earnings from the game at all, absolutely not

Well indeed.

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 2:58 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

On a general charity thing I have always been of the opinion that if you do one thing per year, pick one charity to support, then you have the automatic right to smile at the tin-wavers at the supermarkets and say a polite "no thank you" as I do - I already gave this year.

Sign up for one of those £2 a month standing orders (or usually a fiver now) or do an event once a year and feel the smug satisfaction of having done your bit.

Yes.
AND it gives one the perfect right to say "Feck right off" to chuggers.

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 3:10 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Yes.
AND it gives one the perfect right to say "Feck right off" to chuggers.

Anything gives me the right to do that.

Re: rememberance : Wed Nov 09, 2011 3:41 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

Don't they ?

My knowledge of football is below zero, so they play the game for pure benevolence reasons ?

England footballers have donated their match fees to charity for many years now - without exception

can't speak for the other Home Nations tho'