please empty your brain below

Perhaps the prizes are targeted at those segments of society that aren't that aware of the Poppy Day appeal, after all very few people nowadays have any connection with the armed services.

The best judgement of this is what is the media/establishment doing vs what is society doing, so media/establishment diligently wear poppies, out on the street in the real world very few people bother.
Terrible. Whatever happened to a quiet, dignified remembrance? Or must everything now be subordinate to the rampant god of consumerism? I realise that I sound like a Daily Mail reader here, but the Poppy Appeal and its meaning have both changed, and not for the better.
Appalling. Words fail me.
Excellent post thank you. I agree with your sentiments.
And woe beside anybody who takes a picture of an Underground train using Flash photography !
What on earth is Poppy day anyway? It is still two weeks to Armistice Day. Armistice day used to be special - now its watered down by three weeks of overhyped build up. (So, in a different way, is Christmas: everyone always seems at a lose end by about lunchtime on Christmas Day, and stir- crazy by the end of Boxing Day)
Waterloo station's concourse was recently cleared of most of the retail units - I thought it was to create more circulation space but apparently it is a performance space for a military band.
I dislike military parades on Armistice Day - they give an unduly sanitised picture of what it is we are actually remembering.
The poppy appeal itself - old and injured soldiers should of course be looked after properly, but it's the Government who employed them and sent them to war and the government who should be looking after them. That is what I pay my taxes for. The popular appeal of the annual poppy craze lets the government off the hook.

In my work canteen there was a poppy collection box - no problem with that. Underneath was what at first glance looked like a particularly graphic Poppy Day display: until I realised it was a very large Halloween-skull mask, with eyes exactly the size and colour of poppies.

Between them, Halloween and Armistice day seem to have squeezed poor old Guido Fawkes out altogether this year.
@ timbo - "Round of applause". Your post pretty much sums up my view of things. I stopped buying poppies when it apparently became an "obligation"to conform, with barbed enforcement by Barbara Windsor, rather than a matter of choice.
Does a picture of a TfL Rail train with a poppy on the front count? They seem to be unfairly excluded from the T&Cs.
Surprised that they didn't manage to concoct a poppy roundel.
how can you "select at random" and say the "decision is final". It's not a decision, it's a random selection, presumably.
Just goes to show, these days some people will try to make a buck from anything.

As for Branded goods - I've often thought that the manufacturers, rather than charging more for Branded goods, should pay us for wearing their logos and thus advertising them even further!
I have just entered with a really bad photo. Though it's unclear whether I can enter with the same photo repeatedly.

T&Cs: "...must
not have been published before in any other publication" - the exact same twitter feed is not "any other publication", right?
Excellent. Let's commemorate the sacrifice of the fallen and the wounded (and support the ongoing work of the RBL) with a self-congratulatory orgy of corporate branding and luxury handbags.

Surely Remembrancetide starts on 1 or 2 November and runs to Remembrance Sunday or at a push Armistice Day.
It would have been better if they had said they'd donate, say £1, to the Royal British Legion for every entry received. The benefits could then have been seen to be a bit fairer and more mutual.

However, like Help for Heroes, it would still seem a bit third world because the well-being of ex-soldiers and their families shouldn't be reliant on people happening to buy the right brand of eggs or entering a raffle.

But at least it's not quite as cynical as Ronald McDonald which exploits a very worthwhile cause to make junk food seem acceptable.
"Surely Remembrancetide starts on 1 or 2 November and runs to Remembrance Sunday or at a push Armistice Day. "

What is "Remembrancetide"? It seems to have completely absorbed All Saints and All Souls.

In the 1920s it was two minutes. I cannot see any reason for it being longer than the period between Nov 11th and Remembrance Sunday (i.e maximum four days)

The increasingly garish poppies worn as fashion items seem to miss the point - as does the frankly ugly monstrosity on Waterloo Station.

I shall wear a standard poppy on Nov 8th and 11th, and remember my grandmother's first husband, and my other grandmother's brothers, who all died in 1916, and all the other names I saw on the walls at the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot - and all the people - civilians and military alike - who will have died in war since the last Remembrance Day. There is no place in that for brass bands.
I won :) Thanks DG!
"When's the right time to start wearing a poppy?" (from 2006) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6085132.stm

The OED has a citation for Remembrancetide from the 1950s, suggesting that that it starts when the Field of Remembrance opens at Westminster - next Thursday, I think. The week or two before Remembrance Sunday seems a suitable time to me, but I agree it is very much a personal thing. The trend towards more ostentatious flaunting of poppies is somewhat unseemly, in my view, but I find it heartening that more people are remembering the past when first-hand memories of the first and second world wars slip away. Lest we forget.
Oh Greg, what a perfectly pitched photo of a poppy and a DLR ventilation grille! Congratulations!
I see entries to competitions via social media as a type of spam, that should the websites should try to discourage and/or filter out of people's streams. At least some adverts are clearly marked as adverts.
Well done Greg! I'm sure you will carry (wear?) your handbag with pride!
Wonder how many will be on ebay next week?

I can't make up my mind whether it's a travesty to the memory of the Fallen, or a brilliant way to raise awareness to an increasingly apathetic population!
Ah no, handbags were yesterday.

This morning's prize was a Time Out London card, while this afternoon's lucky winner gets tickets to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park.

Definitely well-targeted gifts, and not just freebies from publicity-seeking organisations.
Seriously your link is already out of date. Please be more careful.
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2015/famous-voices-to-take-over-the-transport-network-this-london-poppy-day

DOESN'T WORK!!!!!!
@ Bob

It's actually a broken link shown on TfL website; add /october after '2015' and you'll get this which works a treat.










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