I would just like to draw everyone’s attention to a bit of a coincidence which struck me as truly, truly heartbreaking. As you might know I’m a huge Michael Palin fan. Last night I was rewatching the fourth episode of his New Europe series, being shown on BBC Four. First aired in 2007, New Europe has Palin exploring eastern Europe and the old Soviet Bloc. Last night’s episode was about Ukraine. About halfway through the episode, Palin notes that he had visited that area fifteen years previously in 1992’s Pole To Pole, going on to say how much it had changed since the end of communism. At that time, of course, Ukraine was looking forward to a bright, tolerant, democratic future as part of the European family. He then wonders, quite naturally, what things would be like if he was to return in another fifteen years: would he be able to meet the same people he met the first two times, and experience the same sense of optimism?

I’m not sure whether this was deliberate scheduling by the Beeb, but such a third visit, fifteen years after 2007, would have been last year. Now, of course, Ukraine is being ravaged by war; the cities Palin’s program shows us such as Lviv and Mariupol, then so open, inviting and intriguing, now appear regularly on the news, bombed beyond recognition by the Russians. Such a third visit would be impossible due to the despotic delusions of a wannabe tzar. I must admit that that strikes me as utterly heartbreaking.