When you get drawn in by all the nonsense surrounding poppies every year: the faux outrage about celebrities not wearing them and 'how dare they disrespect the fallen!'; the sequined/ diamond encrusted ones or the giant plastic poppies tied to lampposts and car bonnets; the racist inflammatory social media posts that claim Muslims want to ban poppies; the public 'art' that turns the First World War into a meaningless, 'Lest We Forget', sentimentalised, poppy theme park. When all that 21st century bullshit swoops by every November it's worth reading Siegfried Sassoon's poem Suicide In The Trenches. Written by a man who knew what he was writing about. 'The smug- faced crowds... who cheer when soldier lads march by/ Sneak home and pray you'll never know/ The hell where youth and laughter go'.
