Some twenty odd years ago on Remembrance Sunday I was in London and travelled up to Victoria Station to buy a copy of an Irish newspaper. I got on the underground to visit a friend in North London.

The only other person on my carriage was a retired military officer…the full Remembrance gear on him….bowler over beige overcoat, umbrella, regimental tie and a display of medals. Actually I am always amused that even in requirement the “officer class” take precedence.

Athough Colonel Blink did not speak to me, I was aware that he was staring at me in a disapproving manner. This guy clearly did not storm the Normandy beaches or preside over the catering in Catterick Camp so that he would end up sitting in an empty underground carriage with a Paddy reading the Sunday Independent. I was causing him offence.

The London police have issued a warning to people not to cause offence at Thatchers funeral. Well of course to do so would be ban manners and if noisy or confrontational would be an offence in the legal sense. But what exactly is an offence?

Central London, especially the route from Parliament to St Paul’s Cathedral will be filled with the kinda people who always line the routes for “royal weddings”, funerals and the like. The type that used to line the streets in Wootton Basset for coffins returning from Afghanistan. Chelsea pensioners, British Legion types, public schoolboys, women hoping for five minutes of fame saying on Sky News that they have come all the way from Essex and camped out all night to pay their respects.

Middle England. What will offend them? Well pretty much anything the Daily Mail says.

But “Offence” is a strange thing. It can be UNSOCIAL. It can be ILLEGAL. It can be SUICIDAL. The difference is clear. To wear a Tshirt saying “Legalise Marijuana” might cause social offence to someone. To wear a Tshirt in suppomight the murder of two Manchester police women last year was clearly illegal. To wear a Celtic shirt on the Shankill Road is suicidal.

Which means that the Metropolitan Police issuing a warning not to offend the Thatcher mourners/Thatcherite mob AND stating that implementation of the law is at the discretion of police officers seems a recipe for confusion.

In normal circumstances wearing an Argentina football shirt in the streets of Londois an hardly be considered offensive.  Or an Irish shirt. Or a Celtic shirt. Or a National Union of Mineworkers shirt. I often wear a Che Guevara shirt. and I used to wear a Nelson Mandela shirt. But does this mean walking around London wearing one of those on Wednesday is “offensive” because it might reasonably or unreasonably be interpreted as inappropriate.

Will the Police have a list of Tshirts that are acceptable and unacceptable ” Iron Lady …Rust in Peace” will be banned? Argentina football shirt is ok? …..even if worn by a group of thirty people?

What IS clear is that Thatchers Funeral is not “a day for us all” although a risible thread on Slugger O’Toole will possibly try and tell us that it is.

Wearing a Celtic shirt in your front garden while watching an Orange Parade in a nationalist town in Keady might well cause offence to the marchers. So it should. Should it be a matter for PSNI…the police?

On the day after the funeral we will know whether it was genuinely a ceremonial funeral….or whether St Paul’s was effectively over for a massive political rally. Ironically the same people who will “occupy” St Paul’s Square this week are the same people who called for the removal of protestors in the same Square last year.