*Swoon*

My schoolgirl crush on Jon Snow gets bigger by the day. The latest reason to love the wacky-tie wearer? His refusal to back down over wearing Remembrance Day poppies while on air. Snow's rationale behind refusing to wear the poppy while broadcasting is simple. In his own words:

"There is a rather unpleasant breed of poppy fascism out there - 'He damned well must wear a poppy!'. Well I do, in my private life, but I am not going to wear it or any other symbol on air."

You tell 'em, JS!

Why is it so hard for people to understand that wearing symbols tied to a particular group is not acceptable for any real journalist, especially those who appear on television? Okay, so the British press is divided along fairly obvious political lines, but for there to be any kind of controversy over the fact that a journalist wants to make a point of appearing politically neutral and objective indicates how badly the true role of the reporter is misunderstood.

It's incredibly refreshing to know that someone like Jon Snow, who is held in such high public esteem that he doesn't really need to make these points anymore, still makes the effort to do so. The Daily Mail-reading masses who are supposedly up in arms at his decision should be happy with the fact that he admits to wearing a poppy in his day-to-day life and leave it at that.