John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal in 1969, where they held their bed-in to protest at the Vietnam war.
Photograph: Gerry Deitfer/AFP/Getty Images
Those of you scanning the print edition of this newspaper today might easily have flicked straight past page eight, a dozen paragraphs of simple type surrounded by a large white border with a simple sketch of a man, woman and child at the bottom.
A low-key corporate advertisement? No, Yoko Ono's personal plea for peace and love on the 26th anniversary of John Lennon's murder.
The text reflects partly on the former Beatle's death on December 8, 1980, when Mark Chapman shot him four times outside the entrance of his New York City apartment building.
Ms Ono muses:
"As the widow of one who was killed by an act of violence, I don't know if I am ready yet to forgive the one who pulled the trigger."
She also calls for the anniversary to be a day when people around the world, while remembering her late husband, also think of the victims of violence and injustice:
"Every year, let's make December 8 the day to ask for forgiveness from those who suffered the insufferable."
No one would doubt the sincerity of the words. But they beg another question: is John Lennon a symbol for peace in the modern world?
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