We had friends round for dinner last night and I drank a bit too much - nothing by my standards of five years ago, but I have lost my ability to drink copiously and don't do it very much any more. Today I was pole-axed as a result, though it's interesting how hangovers have changed for me. In the past if I was hungover I'd have a headache and a throat that felt like it had been grated and then coated in fluff, nowadays my head feels generally fine with a light mist of lethargy and the effect has headed south towards my stomach, giving me a sense of unease, rather than pain and a ravenous appetite for junk food (oh now you know it's called junk food, you Mastermind losing idiot!). Drinking also now makes me wake up at 5am and then be unable to sleep for 3 hours. So I came down and watched "Life's Too Short" to pass the time. Found it a bit half-arsed (no pun intended - and there is no pun in there, because dwarves have whole arses), though apparently using that term is offensive to people born without whole arses or who have had half their arse cut off in an accident.
I had hoped to get to the gym today and then do some work on my script but I felt like I was walking around in a diving suit full of fog for most of the day and achieved next to nothing. I popped out to the Post Office and to buy some junk food (don't rub it in) and saw a people carrier turning left into a road almost take out a cyclist. I noticed that a young man in the front of the people carrier was wearing a poppy. I wondered if he has passed the poppy cut off. There should be stricter rules regarding the poppy - I think you can wear one in the week before Remembrance Sunday, even maybe the fortnight, but any more than that is showing off (especially if you go for one of the new showbiz glitzy poppies, though perhaps people felt that when the regular ones started turning up with a sprig of green leaf added on) - but once Remembrance Sunday has passed I think it's time to take off the poppy. Otherwise we'll be wearing poppies all the year round. It'll be like a game of last one to clap: people will be keeping them on for longer and longer periods to make it look like they care more about our fallen soldiers than anyone else. To avoid it turning into a disrespectful competition of respect I think anyone wearing a poppy after Remembrance Sunday should be treated like a pariah. Take off your poppy.
The wearing of a poppy already rouses massive passion, with some people infuriated if others don't wear them at all - but if we're celebrating the freedoms that people died for us to keep, then we have to respect people's choices. I enjoyed the opprobrium caused when FIFA said the England team couldn't wear poppies on their shirts, because it was a completely understandable enforcement of their rules. There is a similar passion for all causes and if they let one symbol through then they will have to allow them all. And football games will get ruined if all the players are running around with their red noses on, not least because they keep falling off and they'd have to stop playing to pick them up.
But I wonder if we can use this passion and sense of entitlement and anger for good. I don't think it would take much to convince the public that Christmas can not begin until after Remembrance Sunday. No shops can start selling Christmas stuff, no Christmas songs can be played, no Christmas lights can go up. It would be disrespectful to our brave soldiers and sailors and air force if anyone transgressed this rule and any business involved would be boycotted. It would mean that Christmas couldn't start until 12th November at the earliest, which is still stupidly early, but not as stupidly early as it is at the moment. Who's with me? We can make this happen.
