1. Here’s the first in a series of four podcasts on the final days of the Soviet Union and Putin era Russia from The Rest is History team of Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland https://open.spotify.com/episode/0auxUb9EcE6Ot0SP4y2pko?si=JMq57nyLQNSoAZU6_s4GIg
Their avowed intention is to ‘interrogate the past’ and ‘de-tangle the present’. “They question the nature of Greatness, why the West no longer has civil wars and whether Richard Nixon was more like Caligula or Claudius. They’re distilling the entirety of human history, or, as much as they can fit into about fifty minutes.”
Full, rich archive of all 166 episodes to date here https://open.spotify.com/show/7Cvsbcjhtur7nplC148TWy
2. First of two pieces to do with the London Underground today: Children’s Lives in Second World War Britain, a photo archive of the experience of children forced to interact with the adult realities of the Second World War
3. My grandmother used to talk about her lunch ‘repeating’ on her. Mine has been repeating on me today, evidence that I do not suffer from this week’s phobia, alliumphobia.
4. I mentioned Poems on the Underground https://poemsontheunderground.org/ the week before last and had intended to follow up more quickly. Judith Chernaik has kindly let us have ten copies of each of a recent set of six poems:
And Suddenly It’s Evening by Salvatore Quasimodo, translated by Jack Bevan https://poemsontheunderground.org/and-suddenly-its-evening-2;
My Father by Yehuda Amichai, translated by Stephen Mitchell https://poemsontheunderground.org/my-father;
For the House Sparrow in Decline by Paul Farley https://poemsontheunderground.org/for-the-house-sparrow-in-decline;
All Souls’ Night by Frances Cornford https://poemsontheunderground.org/all-souls-night;
Diary by Katrina Naomi https://poemsontheunderground.org/diary;
To — by Percy Bysshe Shelley https://poemsontheunderground.org/to
Let me have your choice of up to three poems and your postal address by WhatsApp or e-mail or message on my blog and I’ll send them to you just as quickly as I can.
Photo of one example poem below – they frame very nicely!
5. And, finally, today’s poem for Ukraine: Lessons of War by Alan Maley (PDF below as well.)
Lessons of War
In the course on war
For complete beginners,
The first lesson teaches
In war there are no winners.
What may first look like victory
Soon tastes like defeat,
When conquering territory
Leaves only dust to eat.
The conqueror’s instant rapture
Soon fades when they fail to capture
The souls of the defeated –
And find their own souls depleted.
So everyone loses when it comes to war:
It’s really difficult to see what war
Could conceivably be for …
Alan Maley
Roy Cross's Blog 
