It's not that, Dux. I know it is. But I do feel like it's living off past glories when we aren't exactly happy and glorious now. Or maybe it helps make people feel like we were something once...
Thanks for appreciating where I am coming from, Coffers. Having grown up in a house that seemed to watch The Greatest Day and that bouncing bomb film quite often and having been dragged around numerous museums and war memorials as a kid, maybe I have just had enough of all of it.
agree there dusty. it is not that it mustn't be remembered but a realisation that generations have moved on and sometimes it feels like a drag on any progress. We are not operating in isolation in the real world.
that said I did wear my poppy to the german office over the entire week earlier in November.
I agree 100% with the OP. If nothing else it diminishes the sacrifices made and the lives lost of more recent conflicts. Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq1, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Iraq2, Sri Lanka. Where are their commemorative coins? I have one. And it was issued by the Kuwaiti government, not the British.
Utterly disingenuous. They were all professional soldiers who chose to have a career getting shot at. WWII was an existential threat to our nation, in which every able-bodied adult male played a part.
May want to talk to some commuters who go through Russel Square, Tavistock Square, Paddington, London Bridge, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Aldgate, before you go telling someone what you consider is or is not an existential threat to our way of life you fooking tool.
Are you suggesting a few terrorists trying to blow up the Tube is in any way comparable to a wholescale invasion by a foreign power? Have a word with yourself ffs.
LOL @ coffers’ suggestion that WW2 isn’t gloated over in Russia. They’re obsessed with it - see for the best example the colossal mother Russia statue in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow.
that said I did wear my poppy to the german office over the entire week earlier in November.
This is entirely acceptable. Does anyone doubt that they would not ave been flaunting their nazi armbands an party badges about the place ad it been them wot won? The sight of a poppy once a year is considerably less offensive than to ave ad to watch Hitler’s column rising every morning
I took the kids to the Postal museum. About 30% of the exhibits are given over to the Royal Mail during the second world war. My kids are of the opinion that stamps somehow won the war.
It’s not the coin per se. It’s the constant harking back to one particular five year period (give or take) which most people can’t remember. I absolutely think we should know and acknowledge our history but with WW2 it goes far beyond that, even now. It was just a fleeting thought, i have family who fought and lived through it, there was no disrespect other than a feeling that we seem to talk about it a lot in this country and perhaps it makes us feel that we are still enraptured with Blitz spirit or whatever.
How unsurprising of you to completely misunderstand what i am saying. I’m not ungrateful. I’ve spent a lifetime thus far being grateful, ffs. And I’m allowed to think however i want without you being the usual patronising w**ker that you are.
Fools. It absolutely is fetishing (or fetishisation or whatever else it should be called).
Look, my dad was born in 1940. He is dead. Most of my family were actually killed during world war 2, only luck (heh?) prevented my paternal grandfather from joining them as he got TB.
On my mother’s side my grandad flew initially in Halifax bombers and then later Mosquitos.
So it’s not like I don’t have family to respect who made sacrifices. They did and I’m grateful.
But for gods sakes, it was a long time ago. Look at our soldiers and sailors and airmen now, many of whom struggle with mental health issues as a result of the horrors they have seen.
What about the shipmates of the various Albion class vessels who approached the coast of Sri Lanka to be confronted with more than a hundred thousand dead bodies floating in the water in front of them?
Nonsense. If the Germans were two years away from a viable nuclear device then they would have used whatever the hell they had against either the Soviets or us or preferably both.
If you are two years away from a viable nuclear warhead then you can create what is known as a “dirty bomb”. It’s not exactly effective and it is far from efficient but it will get a job done.
They didn’t have that even, they did not understand the full methodology of detonating the right kind of bomb. You may not entirely understand this but there is quite a lot of difference between an atomic bomb and a hydrogen bomb. Making the old version work took hundreds of scientists at Los Alamos and included Richard Feynman for gods sakes.
The Germans had nothing comparable. They were outstanding at rocketry, hence the use of them during the space race.
“Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down, that’s not my department said Werner Von Braun”. - Tom Lehrer.
Ducks, I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp m88 but: there should be a commemoration, what there should not be is a lachrymose fetishisation designed primarily to stir nationalism If you think about this for a while I am sure you will get it.
Subsequent rational opportunities to play a modern major power role, particularly being an influential and committed core member of the EU, have been spurned due to bedwetter nationalists pining for the stories of empire their nannies used to read them.
Not sure you can say that a country armed with the most advanced weapons of mass destruction that the world has ever seen isn’t a “major power”.
But the last actions of Britain as a colonial power, I’ll give you that one all day long. And also agree about this ridiculousness surrounding the world wars. But Britain not being a major power while we still have Trident? No.
Pakistan does not have 64 independent nuclear warheads on a continuous at sea capability that never sleeps capable of being launched in minutes and striking anywhere in the world. There are nuclear weapons and there are nuclear weapons.
Respectfully disagree with most of the above. We have had all sorts of different things on coins recently (Isaac Newton, 2012 Olympics, discovery of the DNA double helix).
It is completely appropriate to have one for D-Day on 75th anniversary given the importance of the event and the context of the war.
Tecco - of course those conflicts you mention are not be diminished but they are not on the same historical scale. I do not think that is controversial.
I agree that the far right and other bad actors politicise WWII for ungainly reasons but that is not a good enough reason for us to downplay its significance.
I have no clue what squadron he was in, all I know is that Halifax during WW2 and then he was in Palestine with Mosquitos after the war.
oh right. where was he stationed in ww2?
from the palestine link and from a cursory check, he was possibly in 13 squadron or 680 squadron (more likely 13 as 680 seems to have flown mosquitos during the war)
maybe he misremembered? either that or he trained in halifaxes rather than flew them in anger
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It's the 75th anniversary FFS. Why shouldn't there be a commemorative coin?
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Good moaning.
Kim Hartman in 'Allo Allo did this for me.
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It's not that, Dux. I know it is. But I do feel like it's living off past glories when we aren't exactly happy and glorious now. Or maybe it helps make people feel like we were something once...
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fook you.
People died so we could have those coins.
Have some respect.
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I thought this was going to be a thread about Max Mosely
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You think they'd want to be remembered in a commemorative coin....?
My grandfather fought in D-Day, I am not sure he would have wanted the fuss. I doubt he would have found it a particularly glorious memory, either.
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glories is a bit suspect but broadly agree.The same level of gloating is somewhat missing in russia, US, and other continental countries.
I hope after this 75th anniversary it will calm down a bit
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Thanks for appreciating where I am coming from, Coffers. Having grown up in a house that seemed to watch The Greatest Day and that bouncing bomb film quite often and having been dragged around numerous museums and war memorials as a kid, maybe I have just had enough of all of it.
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Isn't the WWII thing just wrapping yourself in the Union Jack by a slightly more "respectable" route
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I still find the tales of the extraordinary things that very young normal people did fascinating.
I hope that if I died fighting for my country someone would remember in years to come.
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agree there dusty. it is not that it mustn't be remembered but a realisation that generations have moved on and sometimes it feels like a drag on any progress. We are not operating in isolation in the real world.
that said I did wear my poppy to the german office over the entire week earlier in November.
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it is not that it mustn't be remembered but a realisation that generations have moved on
THIS, 100%.
Sails, agreed - social history on that side is fascinating. But that's not really the aspect I am talking about.
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I agree 100% with the OP. If nothing else it diminishes the sacrifices made and the lives lost of more recent conflicts. Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq1, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Iraq2, Sri Lanka. Where are their commemorative coins? I have one. And it was issued by the Kuwaiti government, not the British.
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Utterly disingenuous. They were all professional soldiers who chose to have a career getting shot at. WWII was an existential threat to our nation, in which every able-bodied adult male played a part.
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May want to talk to some commuters who go through Russel Square, Tavistock Square, Paddington, London Bridge, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Aldgate, before you go telling someone what you consider is or is not an existential threat to our way of life you fooking tool.
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Are you suggesting a few terrorists trying to blow up the Tube is in any way comparable to a wholescale invasion by a foreign power? Have a word with yourself ffs.
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And I didn't say "our way of life" whatever thst means. I said our country.
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How dare you.
And I’ll leave it at that.
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LOL @ coffers’ suggestion that WW2 isn’t gloated over in Russia. They’re obsessed with it - see for the best example the colossal mother Russia statue in the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow.
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that said I did wear my poppy to the german office over the entire week earlier in November.
This is entirely acceptable. Does anyone doubt that they would not ave been flaunting their nazi armbands an party badges about the place ad it been them wot won? The sight of a poppy once a year is considerably less offensive than to ave ad to watch Hitler’s column rising every morning
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above Trafalgar Platz.
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I took the kids to the Postal museum. About 30% of the exhibits are given over to the Royal Mail during the second world war. My kids are of the opinion that stamps somehow won the war.
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@jelkyM
Didn’t Terence Stamp win some war or other?
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@jelkyM
Didn’t Terence Stamp win some war or other?
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It’s not the coin per se. It’s the constant harking back to one particular five year period (give or take) which most people can’t remember. I absolutely think we should know and acknowledge our history but with WW2 it goes far beyond that, even now. It was just a fleeting thought, i have family who fought and lived through it, there was no disrespect other than a feeling that we seem to talk about it a lot in this country and perhaps it makes us feel that we are still enraptured with Blitz spirit or whatever.
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Difficult to know where to start with Stardust ignorance and stupidity
You should be on your knees daily thanking them for their sacrifice
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How unsurprising of you to completely misunderstand what i am saying. I’m not ungrateful. I’ve spent a lifetime thus far being grateful, ffs. And I’m allowed to think however i want without you being the usual patronising w**ker that you are.
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Very important and well within living memory for lots of people.
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Wot Chambers said.
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Fools. It absolutely is fetishing (or fetishisation or whatever else it should be called).
Look, my dad was born in 1940. He is dead. Most of my family were actually killed during world war 2, only luck (heh?) prevented my paternal grandfather from joining them as he got TB.
On my mother’s side my grandad flew initially in Halifax bombers and then later Mosquitos.
So it’s not like I don’t have family to respect who made sacrifices. They did and I’m grateful.
But for gods sakes, it was a long time ago. Look at our soldiers and sailors and airmen now, many of whom struggle with mental health issues as a result of the horrors they have seen.
What about the shipmates of the various Albion class vessels who approached the coast of Sri Lanka to be confronted with more than a hundred thousand dead bodies floating in the water in front of them?
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How close we all were to Hitler having V Rockets and nuclear weapons
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He was miles away from discovering fission, don’t talk utter fooking shit.
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2 years away
You've heard of Telemark?
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Nonsense. If the Germans were two years away from a viable nuclear device then they would have used whatever the hell they had against either the Soviets or us or preferably both.
If you are two years away from a viable nuclear warhead then you can create what is known as a “dirty bomb”. It’s not exactly effective and it is far from efficient but it will get a job done.
They didn’t have that even, they did not understand the full methodology of detonating the right kind of bomb. You may not entirely understand this but there is quite a lot of difference between an atomic bomb and a hydrogen bomb. Making the old version work took hundreds of scientists at Los Alamos and included Richard Feynman for gods sakes.
The Germans had nothing comparable. They were outstanding at rocketry, hence the use of them during the space race.
“Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down, that’s not my department said Werner Von Braun”. - Tom Lehrer.
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Tecco's uncle was Douglas bader and his mum was at school with barnes-Wallace. Fax
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Oh don’t do that mate, I have been a volunteer for the Bader Foundation, find something else to take the piss about me with please.
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I am sorry, I want Rommel
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Ducks, I know this is a difficult concept for you to grasp m88 but: there should be a commemoration, what there should not be is a lachrymose fetishisation designed primarily to stir nationalism If you think about this for a while I am sure you will get it.
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Mate, you forget that Dux won the second world war.
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We are still letting events of 75 years ago define us as a nation - presumably to make up for loss of empire or somesuch - pathetic really
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And how can a man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?
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I live where Lee Rigby was murdered,
WWII, and most army conflicts, memorials are mostly used to push a Britain First agenda
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It was Britain’s last moment as a major power
Subsequent rational opportunities to play a modern major power role, particularly being an influential and committed core member of the EU, have been spurned due to bedwetter nationalists pining for the stories of empire their nannies used to read them.
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Hmm.
Not sure you can say that a country armed with the most advanced weapons of mass destruction that the world has ever seen isn’t a “major power”.
But the last actions of Britain as a colonial power, I’ll give you that one all day long. And also agree about this ridiculousness surrounding the world wars. But Britain not being a major power while we still have Trident? No.
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P.s. I am all for getting rid of Trident as I don’t think we can actually afford it, but let’s not pretend it isn’t what we know it is.
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Pakistan has nuclear weapons m88 and its not a major power. It’s barely a regional power.
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Pakistan does not have 64 independent nuclear warheads on a continuous at sea capability that never sleeps capable of being launched in minutes and striking anywhere in the world. There are nuclear weapons and there are nuclear weapons.
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Imagine what Pakistan could do if they had your wikipedia skill m8!
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Respectfully disagree with most of the above. We have had all sorts of different things on coins recently (Isaac Newton, 2012 Olympics, discovery of the DNA double helix).
It is completely appropriate to have one for D-Day on 75th anniversary given the importance of the event and the context of the war.
Tecco - of course those conflicts you mention are not be diminished but they are not on the same historical scale. I do not think that is controversial.
I agree that the far right and other bad actors politicise WWII for ungainly reasons but that is not a good enough reason for us to downplay its significance.
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Please don't come around here with your respectful and reasonable views Diablo. They aren't welcome.
We want a commemorative coin for every disturbing event witnessed by a brit. With illustrations.
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Errr wot dusty sed
it is in particular people who haven’t achieved much who constantly revel in this past glory
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I completely agree that it is time to get over newton. He fckd up his major maths theories and tried to make gold into lead.
My m7 dave once weed on him.*
*a statue of him
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Rude
:-|
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Yeah, they generally go all out for the 75th and then the 100th is always a quiet affair if not totally ignored.
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Er, enthusiastic commemoration of WW2 is missing in Russia is it? Are you sure?
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that’s a weird mix given halifaxes were heavy bombers and mosquitos were light bombers
wot squadron was he?
i thought most mosquito pilots were previously light/medium bomber pilots
and conversely obviously most halifax pilots went on to fly lancasters etc if they changed
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I have no clue what squadron he was in, all I know is that Halifax during WW2 and then he was in Palestine with Mosquitos after the war.
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What are you on about dusty?!
its brilliant!
If I should die in some forgotten field then that is forever...wait...where am I from again?
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Wot New Chimp said
You lot don't 'arf chat some shite
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Ultimately, history doesn’t give a shit...
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
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I THANK THE BABYBOOMERS EVERY DAY FOR THE SACRIFICES THEY MADE FOR OUR FREEDOM: NOT FOR NOTHING ARE THEY CALLED THE GREATEST GENERATION!!
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FYI the BBs didn’t fly for 633 squadron
No one gives a toss...
He's a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
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oh right. where was he stationed in ww2?
from the palestine link and from a cursory check, he was possibly in 13 squadron or 680 squadron (more likely 13 as 680 seems to have flown mosquitos during the war)
maybe he misremembered? either that or he trained in halifaxes rather than flew them in anger
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Dulce et decorum est pro oh shut the fook up FGS
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the lollersome things about horace are:
- his cognomen was “flaccus”
- despite claiming it was sweet to die for your country, he was v quick to not die and instead join the enemy when his side lost a battle
- he had pictures and mirrors everywhere in his bedroom, so he could look at porn from every angle
not sure he died for his country
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