The right and the wrong way to celebrate

How the UK marked VE Day............................................................

No country does a celebration like the UK. Fact. End of.

I could bore you all (again) by listing scores of examples but I really only need the one – the VE Day shindig over the last few days.

Somehow we just seem to get it right. Remembrance, combined with dignity and pomp, correctness side-by-side with joy and having a good time.

............................................................and how Russia marked it.

I didn’t, I have to admit, see anything of how the United States celebrated the end of the war in Europe but I can imagine the sugar-coated, over-the-top speeches, the wailing masses and those stupid bands marching as if the musicians had ants in their pant.

However, I did see a little of how Russia marked the occasion.

It was like watching the news during the height of the Cold War, when the old USSR was determined to remind its country folk that it had a bigger one than the Brits or the Americans.

It’s all a little sad, really.

We remembered with songs, happiness and respect.

Russia just got its weapons out.

I’m so glad fate took my mother and me west from Berlin all those years ago.

If things had been different, I wouldn’t now be able to write this Blog.

Now there’s food for thought.