John Lewis and M&S are gonna lose this year

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...sburys-christmas-ad-first-world-war?CMP=fb_gu

Would we welcome an advert next Christmas showing a touching little scene between a Jewish child and a disabled child in Auschwitz, swapping gifts for Christmas and Hanukah on their way to the gas chambers? I would hope not, yet I fail to see any great moral difference.
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imo the writer of that article is spot on. War is not glamourous, it's horrible beyond words.

The hell with Sainsburys.

Sorry, but that's how I feel, I don't want to tread on toes here, just stating how I feel.

I am SO glad I haven't watched telly for around 17 years now.
 
Apparently 'The Royal British Legion' doesn't think so

They helped to make it

Each to their own I guess. I enjoyed it
But to add, I wasn't there either, thankfully!
 
Its not the first time this subject has been done, a similar advert by another retailer was done a few years back, I don't remember it being criticized by anyone or anything then..

I liked the ad and the proceeds from the chocolate bar in the ad are being donated to the British Legion for ex soldiers, that can only be a good thing surely, theres always going to be some sort of trade off as thats the world we live in..
Anyone thats played COD or any other video game where war is depicted could also be criticized for the same sentiments.
I remember watching a documentary with the late Harry Patch being the last world war I soldier still alive at the time around 3 years ago I think, who was telling the interviewer that war was an utterly savage and terrible thing for humans to participate in and that he could never understand why people would want to play video games depicting such things..
Their lies the rub, one mans meat is another mans poison!
 
Hmmm, got to think about this, it's a subject that does require some reflection.

My first reaction though, FWIW in this here debate, is:

a) I think the Royal British legion were wrong to promote this advertisment and give it their aproval, I think it's come to a sorry state when war is used to try and flog turkeys and brussels sprouts.

b) I'd refute any allegations that playing video games simulating warfare could lead to players being accused of similar sentiments.

Why? I think it would be the same argument that's used where critics accuse video games of causing real life violence, which I believe to be untrue. The greater majority of video game players know it's not for real, it's just fantasy and they are controlling cartoon like characters.

The games are a little like sport, they are competitive, just like those other sporting staples - fencing, shooting, boxing, archery and wrestling.

Human beings, particularly the male of the species, enjoy war games, it's just in our nature, the majority of us played war games involving imaginary weapons when we were younger, in my day we played cowboys and indians (or to be more politically correct - ranch employees and native americans).

As for the advert, I can't say with any real authority but I gather from what I've read that the German/Anglo Christmas Day game of football is just a myth, likely dreamed up by some over-sentimental twerp trying to tug at heartstrings. Which is what this ad is so blatantly trying to do (and succeeding, by the sound of it).

I know that if I was taking part in that war and I'd had endless weeks of suffering all the conditions and horror that went with it, I'd positively hate the enemy and rather than have a friendly game of football with him I'd simply want to kill him. That's the way it was - and is, in war.

Anyhow, that's my knee jerk reaction, but youse two have made me step back and think, which is a good thing.

Coda: All ads and correspondence I receive with reference to the celebration taken by the majority of folk on this fair isle every December 25th now gets the same level of ignore from me as any ad proclaiming 'Hurry!' or 'Last chance!'. Until December 1st anyway.

And that includes Sainsburys ;)
 
Well done Sainsburys ! I do not think so. What is there to congratulate them on ??? They have brought Christmas into November, blimey Bonfire Night has only just passed by.

As to marrying Christmas to war in an attempt to tug at folks heartstrings for the sake of profit, well that is just a reflection of how sick the world is.

Flops link says it all,

The trench warfare of 1914-18 sits near the top of the list of horrors that humanity has inflicted upon ourselves and each other. Although it has recently slipped out of the range of living memory, it remains an iconic scar. Like the Nazi Holocaust or the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan, it lives on as a vivid phantom in our culture, a constant reminder of our capacity to inflict incomprehensible degrees of violence and suffering upon innocent individuals. It surely behoves us as a society to retain those deaths with respect and a degree of reverence.
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Enjoy your chocolate bars folks. :cool:
 
Firstly, this ad is far too early for the C******** period. There should be none before December begins.

I don't think that they are glamourising the war, which others have said was horrendous, but are, perhaps, glamourising one of the few non- horrendous parts of what went on. There seems to be plenty of documentary evidence that meetings and the occasional football kick about did take place in 1914 at Xmas. It is said that the Germans won 3-2 (probably on penalties after extra time :D).

There were supposedly a few meetings again in 1915 but after that it was strictly forbidden by the Army top brass.

As to modern video games - the few I've seen being played seem to be all death and destruction.
 
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