News from Moscow suggests that the Wagner Group is attempting a coup. This has been denied, but Wagner undoubtedly revolutionised opera via his Gesamtkunstwerk, in which he looked to synthesise art forms (music, poetry, visual art, and drama).

Drama was, surprisingly for a music buff, the dominant dimension.

Isn’t it always?

This ‘total work of art’ was then appropriated by the Dutch football pioneers in the 1970s for the concept of ‘total football’. Great that they were, they lost in the 1974 final to a well-organised West Germany.

There’s a lesson for us all there.

If the Russki coup fails, perhaps a Mozart Group might pop up to launch a fresh attack characterised by clarity, balance, and transparency, but delivered with a delicacy masking its exceptional power.

Yes, different Wagner, but the same old shit.

It’s been a bizarre week.

Most of it was dominated by a gaggle of dudes with more money than sense, who decided on a trip several miles under sea in a tin can controlled by a Logitech gamepad.

If they’d jumped off the Eiffel Tower with parachutes made of paper napkins, they’d have been deemed dim and served up for a Darwin Award.

This was however a ‘tragedy’ that captured the world’s attention, which was more a lesson on perspective, given the warped priorities of wider society.

Still, the world was treated to a pert definition of ‘implosion’, so it wasn’t all doom and gloom.

This week, a boat containing 750 migrants sank off the Greek coast. Only 104 have been rescued. Nobody appears to give a toss.

And that was a proper boat, not one knocked up in a garden shed.

Ultimately, though, it’s all about drama and entertainment. In a week’s time, there will be scarcely a word written about either the Titan toy sub or the poxy Putin putsch.

It will have sunk down the pecking order of the collective consciousness like the Ukraine war, Donald Trump, and Phillip Schofield.

Next!