War rages in Europe again. Less than three hours flying time from where I live people are literally fighting for their lives. Their crime? They happen to live in a part of the world ruled by a despot and so yet again my corner of the world is plunged into a life and death struggle.

At the same time life goes on around me as normal. The everyday things are still everyday. But we all know that things are anything but normal. A maniac has decreed that his people should try and kill their neighbours and under fear of their own deaths they have set out to kill.

There is no justice to this, there is no excuse. Lunatics like Trump are treating this as if it is a game of Monopoly and praising Putin for his courage. It is incredible that people can watch babies and children get maimed and killed and feel anything but utter revulsion.

Last night I spent some time working on my music. In many ways it feels surreal to do that, in many ways it feels wrong. Surely we should be manning the barricades against animals like Putin and Trump and not be wasting our time on peripheral activities like music and art.

Yet somehow it feels more important than ever that we should produce music and art, that we should scream our defiance to the Putins of this world through music and art. But it doesn’t sit easy.