11:11

A hundred years since the end of the Great War and it being a Sunday and the 11th, it coincided with the Hearts annual remembrance service at Haymarket. So I went up there, as I often do, and met AJ - and this year the SK came along.
It’s a debate endlessly had, whether this poppy stuff remembers our fallen or glorifies war. I think the stadium announcer got it spot on the day before, when at the start of the minute’s silence, he simply said, they came from amongst us, from our families and communities. That felt very real, and hugely touching. As to today’s service, the club chaplain somewhat controversially brought up the events of 11 days ago, arguing that they shamed the dead. I’m not sure the doings of a few neds should have been inserted into something so big, but I thought the message a decent one; if freedom was so dearly bought, how do we each account with what we do with that precious gift?
Much later, a very different commemorative event - the Last Days of Mankind at Leith Theatre. A satire on war, written by one Karl Kraus immediately after WW1 from an Austrian viewpoint, with fantastic music by the Tiger Lillies (Martin Jacques). A stunning (if at times impenetrable, I mean difficult) piece of theatre. I wonder how it’ll all be looked back at in another fifty or hundred years when we, who knew those who were there, are all gone.