Light at the end of the tunnel for Ukraine (Caution: May be a flamethrower)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27072351

Well this is good news to start a long bank holiday weekend! I was seriously worrying that Ukraine was teetering towards a messy Post-Soviet civil war.

Of course such an agreement relies on a certain amount of good will on all sides. Kiev has little incentive to decentralise or accommodate the desires of Easterners except to keep the Russians at bay while Putin is hardly the most straight-talking world leader (although he doesn't achieve the wide-ranging duplicity of certain American and British premiers).

However, behind the scenes there is going to be a huge amount of pressure to make a deal soon. Ukraine is a huge chunk of Europe and occupies a strategic position on the path of Russian gas and oil into the West. A civil war serves nobody's purposes even if it allows Russia to shows its nationalistic disapproval of the seeming unstoppable expansion of NATO and the EU into its territorial backyard.

Olympics come to an end

So the Olympics will be wrapped up this weekend. I must confess that I had difficulty remaining interested for the whole two weeks despite a lot of initial enthusiasm. However, I'm very proud of our model tally. Coming a solid third is a distinct success for a tiny island off the coast of Europe. My uncle who lives in Hamburg says the Germans are spitting mad about British success and I can see why. Economically, politically, culturally there seems to be little special about us but we can still pull off a victory like this. [Ends patriotic gushing].

Also Bristol balloon fiesta this weekend. Anyone in the West Country should definitely come along to watch - it's always a great show!

[Edit] - And what a victory for Mo Farah this evening! His pacing was dynamite.

[Edit, Edit] - What this Olympic needed to sum it all up was a heavy weight Ukrainian boxer from Simferopol doing a celebratory Cossack dance around the ring. Thank you very much, Oleksandr Usyk!

Bombing in Central Ukraine provokes conspiracy theorists

http://rt.com/news/ukraine-dnepropetrovsk-explosion-tram-127/

 Sad that this sort of thing has happened but the Russia Today comments are gold - three pages blaming: 1) The Vatican 2) The Muslims 3)The CIA 4) Polish Special Forces 5) The Jews 6) MI6 7) The Ukrainian government 8) Lone terrorist 9) Mossad 10) Trade Unionists 11) The Mafia 12) NATO 13) Russia Today 14) Jesuits 15) The Russians 16) The Rothschilds

 It's like a mash up of every conspiracy theory since 1786. Although they missed out the Freemasons. And the Communists.