A reminder from an advert a few years ago now of life in the trenches 1914...

Heart wrenching stuff. So sad at what might have been. Football and chocolates instead of industrial massacre. I'm tempted to buy from Sainsburys. Fortunately, the Generals safely ensconced in their chateaus far from the front stopped this hippy nonsense. And the development of the aeroplane, combat tactics and aerial strategies rapidly progressed ultimately allowing WW1 flight simulators to bring us so much joy.

I think of Scrooge's nephew's soliloquy:

* There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew ; * Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time ; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time ; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

If only we embraced the message more fully...