Lest we forget

Today is Remembrance Day. Here is how I have variously seen it marked so far:

1. A mass brawl involving some 40 youths in school uniform outside Balham Station this morning. Several were screaming knife-based threats and one was trying to find a glass bottle to hit somebody with. Kids, eh?
2. A big traffic jam at Parliament Square because Whitehall was closed. I climbed off my bike in a huff, saying under my breath: “what the f*ck have they shut the bloody roa… Oh.”
3. An even greater volume of sanctimonious, ill thought-out old claptrap on the BBC’s ‘have your say’ section than usual.
4. A press release for a new WWII first person shoot-em-up computer game that contained the following paragraph:

The fate of the Pacific hangs in the balance. The Empire of Japan has carried out a surprise offensive on Pearl Harbor [sic] and much of the US fleet deployed in the area has been destroyed. While the US forces have successfully repelled ensuing attacks from the Japanese fleet and secured a critical victory at the Battle of Midway, the outcome of the war is far from certain. Only determination and skills will lead to ultimate victory. Relive some of the grandest and most critical naval battles of recent history and for the first time, choose to lead your fleet to a completely different ending to the war. With both strategy and action at your command truly anticipate your opponent’s every move and turn the tide of war.

Now is it me, or is this some poor timing? Regardless of whether you think that war is over glamorised by the pomp and circumstance of an occasion like Remembrance Day – or whether you’re one of those who jumps to their feet in salute whenever they hear the national anthem – you’ll probably agree that wars cost lots of lives and lots of dead people is not really a good thing. Unless they’re all reality TV contestants.

So to send out a press release today for a game that enables people to re-enact actual, historical scenes of mass death, in what it is presumably an impressively realistic rendering, seems just a touch insensitive.

Don’t get me wrong, I like computer games – although I favour the more futuristic alien ones, largely because imaginary weapons are a lot more fun than 60 yr-old real ones. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with the game per se. I just think it’s a bit stupid to send out the paragraph above because some people, like me, will actually have read it during the two minutes’ silence.

I just really hope it was accidental, and not a deliberate attempt to cash in on some form of aggressive national fervour that is thought to arise every Remembrance Day at the sight of lots of old men struggling down Whitehall who, on any other day of the year – and minus their medals, probably wouldn’t be given a seat on the tube by any commuter in London.