Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
It should be barbed wire or jawbones or something. Not pretty flowers.
Anyone been to Tower of London to see the poppies?
- Thread starter Minnie_the_Minx
- Start date
Do you even know why poppies?
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Of course. You get battered with this all through school
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Actually I would argue that poppies show scale far worse than numbers because there is no comparison possible to anything else (unless there have been other flowers-in-the-moat exhibits that I missed). All it says is "whoa this is a lot of poppies".
At least I would argue that if that was the point but it's not. Each poppy represents the actual person who was killed, who they were, what they thought and felt, as much as a digit on a counter. Neither say anything about what the numbers mean in a social context either. War memorials in villages are much more affecting, where you realise that the number of names there might be more than the number of houses.
Why do you need a comparison to anything else? You can see the scale just by looking at them, and remember that each poppy represents a person. A number on a read-out just wouldn't have the same impact. This installation is one the best ways of showing the scale of loss that I've seen. Everyone's heard the numbers, but this makes it more real.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
The artist responsible was on C4 news this week. Came across as a right twit.
He lost a finger in a roller when installing the exhibit.
He lost a finger in a roller when installing the exhibit.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Poppies though. Pretty poppies growing on ugly corpses. Ugh.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
It's very odd that the further we actually get from WW1, then more over the top the commemoration of it becomes.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
I don't think it's that odd. The memory is fading, so we go all out to remember it. It's time to stop prettifying it though and to acknowledge the horrible pointless ugly waste of life it was.
But this year is different, because it is the 100th anniversary.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I explicitly said that wasn't the point I was making.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
The OTT stuff didn't start this year though, did it? And celebrating the outbreak of a war in itself is pretty odd. There's never been any particular effort to mark the beginning of WW2 for instance.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
Don't think it's that at all, otherwise there'd be an all out effort to remember the Battle of Waterloo next year too.
Well, bizarrely we've spent the last few years going backwards on that too. For most of my life there was a pretty solid consensus that WW1 was an ugly waste of life for no particular purpose. Now all of a sudden saying so is contentious.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
Tories.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
Tristram Hunt broadly agreed with them
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I'm not saying that there aren't militarists and bandwagoners in Labour - the previous govt did plenty of stuff - but I think the historical revisionism that's been happening recently definitely comes from a particular ideological position promoted by sections of the Tory party and allied pundits. It's not even all Tories either.
Andrew Hertford
Chocolate Jesus
I saw the poppies yesterday and there's no doubt if nothing else it is a magnificent spectacle. As for its symbolism, the poppy is a memorial for dead people and not in itself an anti or pro war statement.
A memorial should reflect how the dead person themselves would want to be remembered or how their relations would want them to be remembered, and so the frail yet beautiful blood red poppy is perfect for that purpose. Barbed wire and jawbones as was suggested is missing the point completely.
Having said that and as someone who is vehemently anti war, we do need a few equally spectacular anti war statements. Naturally I also think we should be remembering all the victims of war on Remembrance Sunday and not just British soldiers (who were mostly all innocent victims as well).
A memorial should reflect how the dead person themselves would want to be remembered or how their relations would want them to be remembered, and so the frail yet beautiful blood red poppy is perfect for that purpose. Barbed wire and jawbones as was suggested is missing the point completely.
Having said that and as someone who is vehemently anti war, we do need a few equally spectacular anti war statements. Naturally I also think we should be remembering all the victims of war on Remembrance Sunday and not just British soldiers (who were mostly all innocent victims as well).
I went past it several times while it was being put up. My parents have just come down to London on a special coach trip to visit it and do the Tower, mainly because they (and the rest of the coach trip) are from some of the charities that did the fundraising or the making of the poppies.
One thing it did make me think of was my grandfather's comment that WW1 killed off all the older boys in school. Everyone he looked up to as an older boy - dead. I found myself thinking about that a lot when I estimated the number of people aged 16-21 in the UK in 1914, and came to about the same as the number of poppies.
Fuck Cameron making political capital out of it, though.
One thing it did make me think of was my grandfather's comment that WW1 killed off all the older boys in school. Everyone he looked up to as an older boy - dead. I found myself thinking about that a lot when I estimated the number of people aged 16-21 in the UK in 1914, and came to about the same as the number of poppies.
Fuck Cameron making political capital out of it, though.
story
Changing the facts
Poppies.
The poppy is a medicine for sleep, somnolence, forgetting, anaesthesia.
It's always struck me as an interesting token of rememberance for the fallen of the Great War, for War at all.
There was an item on the radio this morning about how the image of the poppy has been commodified in Northern France, printed onto tote bags and key rings. What exactly is it supposed to mean these days?
It's a fragile brief flower. It doesn't last after it's cut. It only flowers for a day, maybe two. It's considered a weed in the cropfield. It comes up most prolific when the ground has been disturbed and ploughed, or bombed.
It stands for the fallen war dead: brief lives cut down in their prime, unconsidered in their own right, recognised only in context.
Bungle73 , for all the impact they made on me they may as well have been machine made. The installation seemed to me thoughtless, mindless. I'm not saying that they were actually machine made, but they didn't feel any more significant to me than store bought mass made replicas. And that despite signs all over the place (all over the bloody place, telling me over and over and over again) that they were handmade for charity. But these days, hand-made-for-charity is itself a commodification.
I really wanted to be more moved by it. I approached it with respect, with a sense of honour, in a meditative stage. And yet, and yet....
I was there on a quiet day. But I was bumped and I struggled and was pushed and manoeuvred by the crowd. I tried to think of how these my compatriots, and me also, were here free because of the Fallen. I tried to be mindful and present.
And yet....
And I am perfectly aware that people involved were volunteering. In fact some of the people who were cheerily taking photos and chatting were themselves volunteers who had been there every day: some of them were war widows, I spoke with them. Perhaps I was expecting more solemnity, and perhaps they'd been inured to the horror by the fact that they'd been there every day, and by their own experiences.
I commented on it at the time: I said to my friend that I was surprised that the people who were planting the poppies were so chirpy. It felt to me as if the whole thing ought to be like a prayer, a meditation, and it just wasn't.
Whatever.
I'm just saying that I was expecting to be more affected by the poppies than I was. It felt banal to me.
I'm not good with abstract numbers, so unlike FridgeMagnet a digital counter wouldn't have much impact on me. The size of the space occupied by the poppies was very effecting to me...
(I'm not sure I'm using affect-effect correctly here tbh....)
...and it's the first time I've really had a notional idea of the sheer volume of numbers.
I was subjected to CofE stuff as a child - Remembrance services at church, all that stuff - and I was certainly transported by the horror of the war dead during those services, and seeing the wash of red at the Tower made it a visceral reality in way it hasn't been before for me. But somehow, somehow it just... didn't really have any meaning, any emotional meaning.
Yes yes, of course they had to put up crash barriers and manage the crowds blah blah.. But somehow, somehow, rather than being deep in thought about the war, I was looking for the rooks and thinking about Bran and Arthur and trying to see the outline of the White Hill.
There just wasn't any mythos, no archetype, nothing chthonic at all.
ETA I've used notional incorrectly here, haven't I....
The poppy is a medicine for sleep, somnolence, forgetting, anaesthesia.
It's always struck me as an interesting token of rememberance for the fallen of the Great War, for War at all.
There was an item on the radio this morning about how the image of the poppy has been commodified in Northern France, printed onto tote bags and key rings. What exactly is it supposed to mean these days?
It's a fragile brief flower. It doesn't last after it's cut. It only flowers for a day, maybe two. It's considered a weed in the cropfield. It comes up most prolific when the ground has been disturbed and ploughed, or bombed.
It stands for the fallen war dead: brief lives cut down in their prime, unconsidered in their own right, recognised only in context.
Bungle73 , for all the impact they made on me they may as well have been machine made. The installation seemed to me thoughtless, mindless. I'm not saying that they were actually machine made, but they didn't feel any more significant to me than store bought mass made replicas. And that despite signs all over the place (all over the bloody place, telling me over and over and over again) that they were handmade for charity. But these days, hand-made-for-charity is itself a commodification.
I really wanted to be more moved by it. I approached it with respect, with a sense of honour, in a meditative stage. And yet, and yet....
I was there on a quiet day. But I was bumped and I struggled and was pushed and manoeuvred by the crowd. I tried to think of how these my compatriots, and me also, were here free because of the Fallen. I tried to be mindful and present.
And yet....
And I am perfectly aware that people involved were volunteering. In fact some of the people who were cheerily taking photos and chatting were themselves volunteers who had been there every day: some of them were war widows, I spoke with them. Perhaps I was expecting more solemnity, and perhaps they'd been inured to the horror by the fact that they'd been there every day, and by their own experiences.
I commented on it at the time: I said to my friend that I was surprised that the people who were planting the poppies were so chirpy. It felt to me as if the whole thing ought to be like a prayer, a meditation, and it just wasn't.
Whatever.
I'm just saying that I was expecting to be more affected by the poppies than I was. It felt banal to me.
I'm not good with abstract numbers, so unlike FridgeMagnet a digital counter wouldn't have much impact on me. The size of the space occupied by the poppies was very effecting to me...
(I'm not sure I'm using affect-effect correctly here tbh....)
...and it's the first time I've really had a notional idea of the sheer volume of numbers.
I was subjected to CofE stuff as a child - Remembrance services at church, all that stuff - and I was certainly transported by the horror of the war dead during those services, and seeing the wash of red at the Tower made it a visceral reality in way it hasn't been before for me. But somehow, somehow it just... didn't really have any meaning, any emotional meaning.
Yes yes, of course they had to put up crash barriers and manage the crowds blah blah.. But somehow, somehow, rather than being deep in thought about the war, I was looking for the rooks and thinking about Bran and Arthur and trying to see the outline of the White Hill.
There just wasn't any mythos, no archetype, nothing chthonic at all.
ETA I've used notional incorrectly here, haven't I....
Last edited:
story
Changing the facts
To add:
When I thought about each single flower having grandparents and parents and a field to plough or a milk round to get up for or a ledger to fill or a wife to come home to and a child to remember and boots to lace and a nose to pick and a best mate to hope for and mother to respect and a father to look up to and a childhood to overcome and a memory of a day in the sunshine and a deep sigh and fear and hope and desire and hate and heated fear and laughter and weariness and laughter... every single poppy with a complex individual personal back story...
Makes you weep, dunnit. Acgh....
When I thought about each single flower having grandparents and parents and a field to plough or a milk round to get up for or a ledger to fill or a wife to come home to and a child to remember and boots to lace and a nose to pick and a best mate to hope for and mother to respect and a father to look up to and a childhood to overcome and a memory of a day in the sunshine and a deep sigh and fear and hope and desire and hate and heated fear and laughter and weariness and laughter... every single poppy with a complex individual personal back story...
Makes you weep, dunnit. Acgh....
Was the "OTT" before this year?
Um, it's not about "celebrating" it
, it's a commemoration.The start of WW2 isn't a hundred years ago yet.
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
Over the top is possibly not the best choice of words 
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
But for want of a better word, it's always been a bit nauseating, from my experiences at school as a pupil, at work, and in schools that I have worked in.
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
Erm yes. Where have you been? The last few years we had non-poppy wearers being shamed in the press, a footballer abused for not wearing it, that Wootton Bassett nonsense...
Um, it's not about "celebrating" it
Potayto potarto. Why the hell would you commemorate the start of a war?
And? 200 years since Waterloo next year. No one bar military historians will give a flying fuck.
You must be on a wind up or something, because I have a hard time believing you actually need answers to those questions.
story
Changing the facts
Similar threads
