1. I enjoyed this BBC Radio 4 series, Facing the Music, very much on my way back from Yorkshire last week https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m002848z Toby Jones and Sibelius, Dominic West and Beethoven, Maxine Peake and Ethel Smyth: what’s not to like?
2. Back to the UKFIET blog for the first time in quite a while, where the call for abstracts for this year’s conference (in September) closes on 21st March https://www.ukfiet.org/2025/call-for-abstracts-is-open-2/ and there’s a new blog post from Pauline Rose, Celebrating evidence from the Girls’ Education Challenge https://www.ukfiet.org/2025/celebrating-evidence-from-the-girls-education-challenge/
3. A good piece from Laurie Bristow, who was UK ambassador to Russia from 2016 to 2020, on Putin, Putin’s war without end https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/europe/ukraine/69275/putins-war-without-end
A Trump-brokered ceasefire, says Laurie, however favourable to Moscow, will do nothing to alter the Russian president’s worldview or long-term aims.
You’ll need to create a free account – well worth doing!
4. A piece for The Conversation from Andrea Caputo, How to negotiate with Trump: forget principles and learn to speak the language of business https://theconversation.com/how-to-negotiate-with-trump-forget-principles-and-learn-to-speak-the-language-of-business-251399 Principles? Who needs them?
5. And, finally, a piece from the London Review of Books blog by Selma Dabbagh explaining how Israel still relies on ‘emergency regulations’ introduced by the British in 1945, ‘How life is in there’ https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/march/how-life-is-in-there
Roy Cross's Blog 