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My country (the UK) is currently allied with Ukraine against Russia, and that is strongly supported here. I too think it's the right thing to do, given that the enemy is Vladimir Putin, a vicious and expansionist dictator who is a clear threat to peace in Europe much more widely than Ukraine -- and a man whose regime has directly attacked the UK physically (Salisbury) and online (plenty of times). Over the Atlantic, Donald Trump is making it increasingly clear that he likes Putin and by extension Russia, so we in Europe need to step up our game. It won't be easy, but I don't think we have any alternative.

But as I said in the subject line, we need to avoid that leading to us thinking that Ukraine or President Zelenskyy are perfect, because they're not. For example, last month Ukraine passed a law weakening the independence of the country's anti-corruption bodies. This was very unpopular and caused the largest street protests in Ukraine since Russia's invasion. A week later, the law was reversed -- but damage had already been done, and trust in the President has fallen. Zelenskyy said he'd changed course after the protests, and also because of reaction from elsewhere in Europe.

That last bit is significant. Ukraine wants to join the EU, and it hasn't done itself any favours with this. Ukraine has had serious problems with corruption since long before the current war, and that hasn't improved -- the Corruption Perceptions Index shows that it's seen as more corrupt than every single current EU member. Ukraine is nowhere near meeting the Copenhagen Criteria, especially on judicial independence, and its wartime restrictions on the expression of Russian culture are incompatible with EU ideals.¹ The idea that even if peace were secured now, Ukraine would be an EU member quickly, is wildly overoptimistic. It won't be.
¹ This one is complicated by the fact that a few existing member states, such as Latvia, have similar restrictions.

This does not mean that Ukraine should give up on becoming part of the EU. Bulgaria was once hugely corrupt, still has significant problems in that regard, yet is now an EU state. Perhaps a bigger stumbling block might be one that rarely makes the headlines: agriculture. An EU-member Ukraine would be expected to accede to the Common Agricultural Policy, yet as things stand it would risk severely unbalancing it. Unlike other EU countries, Ukraine has enormous agri-businesses cultivating hundreds of thousands of hectares, and some Ukrainian intensive farming practices don't meet EU environmental standards.

I won't go on as I am certainly not a specialist, but my basic point is this: everyone wants peace, or at least everyone worth considering wants peace. But even when peace is achieved, Ukraine does not magically become like any other European country. Not even when the wartime damage has been repaired. After reforms? Well, it's a European state and like most other European states, including the UK, there are some serious problems in its structures that can't simply be brushed aside because it's anti-Putin. (I'm aware that I have at least one Ukrainian reader here, so I hope I can accept corrections to my thoughts with grace and humility.)

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195/365: St Chad's Gospels, Lichfield Cathedral
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I was in Lichfield today, ancient cathedral city and birthplace of Samuel Johnson. I had a couple of hours to myself, which was a nice treat, and I spent a good deal of that in the cathedral. They were showing the Wildlife Photographer of the Year winners, which as usual were superb -- though the low lighting in the cathedral wasn't ideal for this purpose. I'm also not that keen on the way Lichfield has (or at least had today) someone standing next to the way out asking if I wanted to donate. I'm used to Worcester Cathedral, which isn't as pushy and simply has various ways to donate (or buy stuff in the shop), while Gloucester Cathedral openly asks you for a specific amount on the way in. I must say that I prefer both of those approaches. I've never liked being asked for money on the way out of a place, whether it be a charity shop or a church. As it happened I'd called at a donation station earlier on anyway.

Anyway, that little moan apart, Lichfield Cathedral is a glorious building. It's huge inside and out -- you keep happening upon extra side chapels and staircases and the like. In the Lady Chapel they were exhibiting some of their greatest treasures, of which this may be the most remarkable: the surviving volume of St Chad's Gospels, written in the eighth century. (The second volume was probably lost when the cathedral was looted in 1646, during the Civil War.) This book, though in Latin, contains marginal annotations in Old Welsh -- some of the earliest in that language to survive. The similar pigment in the Lichfield Angel and analysis of the paper suggest that, although the book was with the Welsh monks of St Teilo in the ninth century, it was probably written in Lichfield itself, not in Wales.

It really is an extraordinary sight, even behind glass, and even to a non-religious person like me. I'll reassure you that (probably unlike most visitors!) I read every single word of Lichfield Cathedral's photography policy, and every word on the signs up in this room, and there was nothing stopping me taking this photo. I did not, of course, use flash -- so I think it's come out all right given that the dim lighting meant I had to use a 1/14s shutter speed!

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194/365: Old Mill Street Hospital, Kidderminster
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Not quite as warm today, but it still felt hot in the sunshine. I was in Kidderminster for a small part of the day, and that's where I took this photograph. It shows part of the former Mill Street Hospital, built in 1870, which closed about 30 years ago when its operations moved to the more modern building that serves as Kidderminster Hospital today. What you see here is only about half the old hospital, as there's a second, similarly sized (but less striking) building out of shot to the left. This building has now been converted to residential use. It's in a reasonably good place for this, as the town centre and a fairly large Sainsbury's supermarket are only about ten minutes' walk down the hill (off to the right).

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...for whenever I get the time to write in more detail. But I might as well put it here. "AI should go away" (narrator from the future: AI did not go away) is not only unrealistic, it's also simplistic. For a start, LLMs (eg ChatGPT) are a subset of AI, not the whole thing. For another thing, chatting to an AI bot does not have to be worthless, as long as you understand what you're doing and why. And for another, some of the arguments being deployed against it are wildly broad, eg "stop machines doing human jobs". Without qualification? The printing press in the 15th century put humans (calligraphers) out of a job, and I'm assuming most people don't really want to live in 1450.

There are good arguments for being cautious and even cynical about quite a lot of aspects of AI. There are very serious questions about its effect on society, the economy and even our emotional wellbeing. Say that and I'll agree as I'm of that opinion myself, and again I'll try to expand on this on here at some point. But if you want recruits for the army of "AI is all slop, full stop" then I'm afraid I'm not going to enlist.

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190/365: Austin Maestro van, Kidderminster SVR station
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I was off to see friends in Worcester again today, but at Kidderminster station I noticed that the SVR was having one of its occasional classic vehicle days. Although there were some much older cars than this on display -- I think the oldest was mid-1930s -- this is the one that caught my eye. An Austin Maestro City 500 van, of which there are only something like 15 left on the road. Indeed, there are fewer than 100 Maestros of any kind still running, remarkable when you consider that hundreds of thousands were made during the 1980s. Sadly the Austin Rover company had awful quality control at the time, and most have simply rusted away. The few that remain are mostly show cars like this one -- the reason I haven't obscured the number plate. You can also see a Morris Minor behind, but those are much more common today.

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188/365: River Severn from Worcester Bridge
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I had to be in Worcester today for reasons that aren't interesting and took up quite a bit of the day without being especially enjoyable. Ah well, at least it didn't rain! Today's 365 photo is a classic scene that, like yesterday's pic, I've posted before but not as part of this project. It's the view down the River Severn from the main bridge in Worcester city centre. You can see the Cathedral in the distance and the "Glover's Needle" (a spire that's lost its church) to the left.

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Texas: "We're gonna cheat real good!"
California: "Yeah? Watch us cheat better!"

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186/365: Ford Sierra, Kidderminster
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This isn't something you see every day any more, although it was once extremely common. It's a Ford Sierra! Younger readers may not remember these, and Americans may not recognise them, but they were once absolutely everywhere in Europe – they sold almost 1.3 million units in the UK alone during their 11-year production run. This one dates from 1993, the final year of production. It's in the Ghia spec, the highest trim level -- although you can barely see it on the photo, it has miniature wipers for each headlight in the way some Volvos used to. Although this car is over 30 years old now and very much considered a classic, it looked as if it was used regularly, something I was very happy to see.