Remembering Anzac Day

As usual, Australia remembered the dreadful slaughter at Anzac Cove, now 99 years ago. The dawn commemoration at the Cove itself was as usual touching; but instead of the interminable speeches (some good, some poor) and carrying-on, how much more moving and effective it would be shorn of all that, with simply the Last Post and Reveille and a single reading of the Laurence Binyon verse. The no doubt unconscious self-aggrandisement of the staff officers and ambassadors, the speeches boring and sending to sleep the youngest present, the school choirs some members of which can't resist a small smirk at the camera - it simply doesn't seem to me to work at all well, now. And I suppose the centenary occasion next year will be even grander and less effective. 'We will remember them' - certainly; but let's do it with a little more consideration, with dignity rather than pomp.