Remember the living too

SO youve bought your poppy.

Youve remembered the glorious dead. But what about the living? As Remembrance Day approaches it is easy to get sentimental about the past. But perhaps we would do better to concentrate on the modern day military.

A friend of mine was threatening to push her soldier son downstairs recently, break his leg perhaps, a few ribs or an arm.

Anything to stop him being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. She has no problems about him being in the Army. His father, too, was a regular soldier. She knew what hed signed up for and was proud of him.

But before his father had been sent abroad hed had weeks of specialised training.

The son had not much more than a few hours in a lecture room.

There are the calculated risks of a trained body of fighting men. Then there are lambs to the slaughter. The phrase in the First World War was lions led by donkeys.

Tricky to say if its that much better now.

Talk to any Army family now and youll hear stories of inadequate equipment, insufficient training, insufficient troop numbers, not enough time between postings.

Everything stretched to the limit.

At home there are complaints about poor Army housing, of soaring insurance payments, no more specialised hospitals.

And even those people who objected to a rehabilitation centre for wounded soldiers in their smug little neighbourhood.

The trouble is that the Army especially seems worryingly separate from the rest of us.

A generation ago, everyone had a connection with service life, through memories of the war or conscription. Now its another, alien world. The young men in Iraq are the same generation as the shambling, drunken yobs having to be bribed to stay on in education, but they are a world apart.

It doesnt help that even in government, especially in government, there are very few men or women who have any personal knowledge of active service. They have no experience at all of what theyre expecting others to do. And no, a flying photo shoot doesnt count.

The British Legion launched the Broken Covenant campaign to try and shame the Government into keeping their part of the bargain and looking after troops properly.

The splendid new war memorial recently unveiled in Staffordshire carries the names of 6,000 forces personnel killed since the end of the Second World War.

The really chilling aspect is the vast empty space, just waiting for thousands more names. Wouldnt it be better to think of those people before their names get there, rather than after?

It doesnt matter now whether you were for or against sending troops to Iraq. Whatever your banner said, whatever you thought, those young men and women were sent in our name.

And now theyre there, the least they deserve is the equipment and support to do the job properly. And a little appreciation for doing it. Dont forget your poppy.

ö Remembrance online C Page 32 IF anyone else campaigned for the legalisation of brothels, youd start looking for the self-interest or the lunatic streak.

But when its the WI who suggests it, you immediately think....mmmm, yes, probably a good idea. The WI manages to pull off the tricky achievement of both being daringly radical and terribly sensible at the same time. On the other hand, we can possibly now expect a typical WI competition on the theme of how many sex toys you can fit in a matchbox.

I N America you can now get a handheld jammer that will block other peoples mobile phone conversations.

Tempting, isnt it?

Not just for the loud and raucous teenagers all around, but especially for the pompous businessmen who bellow so smugly down their phones with a compete disregard for anyone else in the train, bar or restaurant.

Actually, its not just their phones Id like to zap, but them too. Just a minor jolt, you understand, just enough to shut them up and give us all a bit of peace.

I wonder if the scientists are working on it.

YET again, Oxford and Cambridge are accused of failing to accept enough state school students. Isnt this the wrong way round?

It must be the state schools who are failing to educate their students to a high enough standard for our best universities.

Or even to instil the ambition to aim for the best. Dont blame the universities for wanting the best. Just worry about a state system that fails to provide it.

T HERE is something uncomfortable about looking at the wizened mummified body of the boy king Tutankhamun, now going on display. He might have been dead for 3,000 years, but he was still a human being. Gawping at his body even now seems like just another form of grave robbing.

When the Tutankhamun exhibition came to the British Museum in the 1970s I queued for hours to see it. To be honest, I cant remember much C just the endless crowds and having to keep shuffling along in semi-darkness. Not a great experience.

Except for the golden death mask.

Worth all those hours waiting just for that alone. Stunning , amazing and memorable C and designed to be seen.

Not like the shrivelled remains of the king himself.

M&S next year are going to start charging us 5p for every plastic bag we use. Fair enough.

We use far too many far too easily.

Theres a limit to how many you can reuse to wrap up the rubbish.

But the charge isnt exactly revolutionary.

In the olden days, stores always used to charge us for bags, until it became another freebie we expected by right. And suddenly the number of carrier bags billowed into billions C as did the cost of disposing of them.

Theres no such thing as a free lunch.

No such thing as a free carrier bag either.

So bring your own bag or pay up with good grace.