Movember spawned a monster

I have never taken much interest in awareness campaigns. That I began taking part in the latest Movember was largely by chance. My daughter kept getting into the bathroom before me and steaming up the mirror, so I developed an increasingly unshaven look. Then my son suggested that I take part in Movember, like his friend's dad, and I agreed, you know, for fun. It was a mistake for two reasons.

Firstly, my face is unsuited to a moustache. I had envisaged something dashing, like Robert Donat in The 39 Steps, but I do not have the time, and probably the face, to create that look. It does make me wonder how he managed to keep his moustache in trim while roughing it in the Highlands, but that is another story. I ended up looking more like Magnum PI or a member of the Village People. I found this disturbing, not only at the purely superficial level, but also as a reflection of who I am. I have not had time to consider this in detail.

Secondly, it introduced me to the disappointing worth of the Movember campaign. Medical colleagues told me that prostate cancer is overdiagnosed and overtreated and, perhaps because of the success of Movember, arguably overfunded. As this comment on a Guardian piece about Britain's top 1000 charities put it:

More people die from COPD than Breast, Bowel and Prostate Cancer, and COPD is just one of the lung diseases covered bythe British Lung Foundation. I know they call us the Cinderella Disease but it really is scary to see how low down the scale the BLF comse! It's below 'Uppingham School' or Glyndebourne Arts or Greater Manchester Accessible transport. We have a death rate of one every twenty minutes in England and Wales alone. Oh to be a donkey or a cat - we might stand a chance then ...

When I expressed this concern on social media, the results were disappointing, with people hoping that I didn't get prostate cancer myself. I suppose it could have been worse, as they might have wished I did get it. As I understand it, the odds are that I will get it, but it won't do me any harm.

I think the issue here is probably the way that the media, and particularly social media, discourage sensible debate, and encourage a sort of frantic national consensus – something that has also been apparent in the latest Remembrance Day – or Remembrance Weekend as it is now being described (Remembrance Week/Month coming soon).

This story in the Daily Telegraph – Google criticised for 'demeaning' tribute to Britain's war dead – highlighted the issues neatly. There had apparently been criticism of Google's decision to put a subtle poppy on its homepage, rather than something more spectacular.

MPs criticised today's understated Armistice Day design. Gerry Sutcliffe, a Labour MP who sits on the Culture, Media and Sport committee, said: “Around Remembrance Day it is demeaning not to have something that is spectacular.”

My reaction was that the opposite is the case, and that Remembrance Day is a time for dignified respect. Perhaps he was confusing it with Bonfire Night.

For once, the comments on the article provided a measure of reason, rather than hysteria:

Ah, Remembrance Day as pissing contest. Remember the days when we just quietly got on with it? 

Each year I go to the ceremony at our local war memorial, not in order to be spectacular, but merely to do the decent thing. And every year, this simple ceremony is profoundly moving.

I am increasingly thinking that this is the answer. "Think global; act local" went the old slogan, and it is still true. Rather than engaging with screechy national debates on Twitter I think the only way of debating these things sensibly is at a local level. Or by writing long and tedious articles like this, of course.