Last night I watched the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance.  It is something of a tradition: as a child it meant being allowed to stay up late, to listen to stirring military bands (which I still enjoy whether it's PC or not!) and to watch the solemnity of falling poppy petals.  I can vaguely recall being told off once for thinking it funny that a petal landed on a young soldier's face and he simply had to let it stay there, tickling his skin.  The event has changed over the years - or at least what is shown on television has.  It feels at once more reflective and more contemporary - scarlet coated guardsmen playing base guitar on the one hand and stories of the human cost - civilian and military - on the other.  There are parts of the event that give me cause for question, but there are also powerful and poignant symbols and traditions.  I find the drumhead altar a powerful expression of impermanence, and the falling of the poppy petals is always moving.  Not an obvious visual spectacle, cameras pan around searching for something to show - piles of red on the white of a naval rating's hat, a war widow with a single petal adhering to her hair, poppy petals sliding over the book of remembrance which lies on the topmost drum.  And, this year, a shot of feet, ankle deep in crimson petals: a powerful image of the oceans of blood shed in war.

The balance between remembering and glorification is a fine one, just as is the balance between celebration and mourning a life ended.

It is deeply troubling that 90 years after the Armistice there is only one year in which a UK service-person has not been killed, and no year in which there has been no war or conflict.  There are lots of questions about the British Legion commemorations - and rightly so - but the image of shiny black leather swimming in poppy petals will stay with me for some time.