I finally got the timing right to take a pack of white poppies to sell at the Quaker meeting yesterday. Because we only meet twice a month, I usually forget until Remembrance Sunday has come and gone and it's too late. I'm now about to make a donation to the Peace Pledge Union with the proceeds, plus adding a contribution of my own.

Despite what I wrote two years ago about the Royal British Legion poppy appeal, I actually did buy a red poppy this year, mostly out of habit to be honest, but I am getting increasingly irritated by the insistence that all TV presenters must wear a poppy, even when reporting from the US on the US election. Poppies are not a thing over there, so the pristine ones that the reporters were wearing must have been specially posted out to them. Also there was the huge fuss over Fifa banning the wearing of poppy armbands. Honestly, they're footballers playing a game. I'm sure they can manage to not wear a poppy for 90 minutes. And despite what the pro-poppy lobby say, they are increasingly becoming a political symbol.