Back on the subject of poppies - and the wearing of same - I spent the weekend in Flanders visiting, amongst other places, Ypres for the Menin Gate ceremony on Remembrance Sunday, the 'In Flanders Fields' museum in Ypres, Tyne Cot Cemetery, where there are 12,000 allied servicemen buried, and Vladslo German Cemetery, where lie 25,000 German servicemen (buried 20 to each grave-space). Everywhere where people of all nationalities, many wearing Remembrance poppies.

My emotions were exactly the same at Vladslo German Cemetery as everywhere else I visited - immense sadness and regret at the futile waste of so many young lives by leaders and politicians in pursuit of nationalistic goals, and deep rage at the futility and, unfortunately, the future inevitability of war.

I wore my poppy with deep sadness, and I'll do the same next year, and the year after, and.......