All war is horrific and brutal.

On the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War in 1914 we remember all the fallen of that most gruesome war.

A particularly horrendous, useless war fought entirely for profits which saw young men conscripted to be used effectively as cannon fodder.

The house that I live in was built in 1906 so I sometimes reflect that the people who lived here and in the surrounding homes lived through this era and perhaps some of the menfolk endured the horror of the battlefield.

It is of course right and proper to remember the dead but surely the most fitting remembrance is to resolve to pursue peaceful conflict resolutions in the future and to leave wars to a clearly marked drawer which reads 'only to be used as a very last resort when all other alternatives have been thoroughly exhausted'.

The Peace Pledge Union promote the white poppy to honour the dead by fighting for peace.

There is no glory in war. Just pain, suffering, carnage and terrible loss. Today at 11am fall silent for the dead but in every other hour and day fight with all your energy for the living by promoting peaceful resolutions of conflicts not more wars.

The politics of the bland

I know it will probably annoy some politicians to be compared to beauty queens but honestly the recent backstabbing and bitching going on in the politics world has resembled the backstage of a beauty pageant.

The Scottish Labour Party are at each other's throats. Seemingly its handbags at dawn with Joanne Lamont and Margaret Curran having a fall out after so many years as comrades.

The battle begins in earnest to secure the leadership title to a Scottish Labour party in decline.

I know and like Neil Findlay but I can't help thinking that old Scottish phrase 'the baws burst' applies to what has become known as the Red Tories after their disastrous joint campaign with the Tories to 'save' the UK.

Then there is all the wee catty remarks being made about Nicola Sturgeon and her proposed style of SNP leadership.

Talk about the claws out. Well I know and like Nicola. She is a clever and compassionate woman who will, I'm sure, make a very distinguished First Minister.

Down south we have the daggers well and truly out for Ed Miliband, whom my mother insists on calling 'that wee boy,' and is clear he's 'oot on his ear'.

His own party members recognise his inability to connect with ordinary folk. Every day someone else from the beleaguered 'people's' party seems to want to shift the blame and claim it 'wisnae their fault'. Surely the biggest problem in politics nowadays is the fact they all look, sound and say the same things, give or take the odd sound bite?

They all seem content to make pensioners, low paid workers, lone parents and the unemployed pay for an economic mess which was the fault of the bankers and politicians not the poor and vulnerable. Surely we need politicians not afraid to attack the rich and the privileged instead of the current bunch who only defend them and aspire to join them?