“There’s one !” BANG !
“Did you hit it ?”
“A bit”
“A bit ? Is it dead ?”
“It will be in about five minutes”

[Extract from conversation between spotter and marksman during the recent badger cull]

“There’s one !” BANG !
“Did you hit it ?”
“Yes”
“Is it dead?”
“Yes”
“Is the uprising over ?”
“Huh. You wish !”

[Extract from conversation between Yanukovych and sniper]

As Mr Vonnegut might have said – “And so it goes”.

Shooting stuff as a first resort doesn’t work. In Badger World, vaccinating would have been effective, but somewhere, a financial jobsworth worked out that paying [not very good] marksmen to shoot badgers was cheaper.

Yanukovych didn’t have the political nous to understand that having snipers shoot protesters wouldn’t endear him to anybody, and it certainly wouldn’t prevent a big slice of “his” country infecting the rest of the place with ideas other than dictatorship.

And has anybody PROVED conclusively that badgers are the sole infectors of cattle with TB ? No.

Persuasive evidence , a lot available via social networking, convinced west Ukraine that Yanukovych was a greedy, corrupt person, so west Ukraine got rid pdq., ably assisted by all manner of unsavory fascists as well as ordinary Ukrainians. We might feel much the same if it transpired that David Cameron kept a private zoo in the garden behind No 10. Which we paid for. Not unlike his silly HS2 railway. Which we will pay for..

Of course, that’s a ridiculously simple view of recent happenings in Ukraine. What’s going on there bears no relationship with the botched badger cull

Or does it ? So much of political decision-making depends upon the personalities involved. Yanukovych’s stupidity is shared by whoever had the final decision about badger –culling. Mr Cameron’s stupidity in stubbornly backing the ruinously expensive HS2 scheme might just be pulled back from the brink and turn into common sense IF he can somehow maneuver things so his own senior bods’ warning that HS2 would make flooding even worse appears to be HIS idea. Then he’d have an excellent reason for cancelling HS2 – which he’d dearly like to do.

Whoa ! This has become entirely too serious. So on a lighter note, I’ll bang the drum for Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival – 26^th April, all day, in the Market Square, erm, Shrewsbury. The theme this year is “Music”. It’ll be a rip-snorter. Come early to avoid disappointment.

And banging my own drum, I’ve got an exhibition of “”serious” painting at Gallery 3, The Gateway Arts Centre Shrewsbury, SY11NB,  – 17^th March to 21^st April. Private View 6.30 – 8.30 14^th March. Rumour has it there will be things on sticks and some outstandingly average wine as well as lots of non-figurative paintings. One or two cartoons may worm their way in. All welcome.