I know the link between the KBB industry and what I’m going to say now is a tenuous one, but you’ll see from this week’s news, that I attended the launch of some fabulous new Whirlpool dishwashers this week.

This involved travelling to London by train and embarking at St Pancras Station, before walking across and through St Pancras International and along the shopping mall. But despite a frantic search, nowhere did I see a poppy for sale and nor have I seen any in my home town of Epsom.

I wear a poppy to show my respect of ALL those who’ve lost their lives fighting what I consider to be unnecessary battles throughout the world and am flummoxed as to why – on the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1, I’m unable to do so this year. I felt self-conscious walking into the room without a poppy, but noticed immediately from the other people’s lapels that I’m clearly not alone in being unable to buy one!

Where have all the poppies gone I wonder? Has so much effort been put into making the wonderful display of ceramic poppies at the Tower of London and the large versions festooning our towns and cities, that no-one’s been making the paper versions?

Elsewhere in the news is trouble of a different sort, with Turkish appliance manufacturer Beko being fined £75,000 (plus costs) for failing to reveal to Trading Standards that several Beko cooker models were potentially unsafe, if used with bottled gas when the grill oven door was shut.

Sadly, this is a difficult one to recover from, since once a brand is associated with an issue such as this, members of the general public quickly forget what particular part of the company’s portfolio has suffered problems and avoid the brand completely, just to be safe.

While next year’s poppy push will no doubt feel somewhat subdued after this year’s extravaganza, I can’t help feeling that the Royal British Legion will find it easier to get back to normal by this time next year than Beko will…

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Yours,

Jan Hobbs