CANCEL CULTURE IS A FOOLISH IDEA.

I'm not a fan of it when it comes for campus speakers or entertainers.  It's stupid for an orchestra to fire its director for failure to make the proper woke politically correct statements.  "Acclaimed Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, known to have close ties to the Kremlin, was fired Tuesday from his job as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic after failing to denounce Moscow's invasion of Ukraine." You'd think that after Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter the Germans would know better.  What's next, a land acknowledgement before the concert?  An appearance before the Diet of Worms?

Gergiev had in recent days already been dropped from upcoming concerts at the renowned Philharmonie concert hall in Paris and by the Vienna Philharmonic at New York’s Carnegie Hall.

The Edinburgh International Festival has also cut ties with him, as has his agent in Germany, Marcus Felsner.

The other National Railway Museum (the one in York) is also engaging in purity tests.

Science Museum Group director Sir Ian Blatchford has also returned a Russian cultural medal awarded to him in 2015.

He said: "In light of distressing events in Ukraine, we have decided not to proceed with our upcoming exhibition at the National Railway Museum and Science Museum, Trans-Siberian: The World's Longest Railway.

"I know I speak for all my colleagues in the Science Museum Group, when I say we stand united in opposition to this conflict and in support of all those impacted by Russia's invasion."

By missing an opportunity to provide additional information, say, about the role of Ukrainian convicts in the construction of the railway, or about the newer BAMlag, which might be undergoing repairs using convict labor.

The exhibition, due to open later in March, had originally been due to take place in in 2021, but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It would have celebrated the railway, which runs 5,772 miles (9,290 km) from Moscow to Vladivostok and opened in 1916.

Objects for the show included items from the Moscow Kremlin Museums, the State Archives of the Russian Federation, Russian State Library, the State Hermitage Museum and the Central Museum of Railway Transport in St Petersburg.

Those included the famous Fabergé Easter egg known as The Great Siberian Railway, that contains a bejewelled model train, created for the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II.

Sir Ian was awarded the Pushkin Medal in 2015 for his work on an earlier exhibition.

"I cannot keep a medal that was handed out in the name of the Russian state by Vladimir Putin, who is responsible for this war," he said.

"My enduring admiration for the Russian people themselves, and their cultural and scientific achievements, is undiminished."

Wouldn't it be possible to send the medal back, heck, go to Moscow and toss it over the Kremlin wall or leave it in the St. Basil's poor box, whilst letting Englishmen distinguish between the kleptocratic Russian government and the long-mistreated Russian people?

Dear reader, it might be the case that the Cardiff Philharmonic had particularly bad timing scheduling an all-Tchaikovsky concert featuring both the Marche Slave and the Overture 1812 as well as the Second ("Little Russian") Symphony.  There's been a programming change.

The orchestra will instead present a programme centred around Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8, with John Williams‘s The Cowboys Overture opening the concert, and a performance of Elgar‘s Enigma Variations in the second half.

That's caving in to mob outrage, when it's straightforward enough to mention the contested status of "Little Russia" that figures in the current war, and scheduling a suitable Ukrainian hymn or anthem after the symphony, as well as to note that the excerpt of "God Save the Tsar" in the march and in the overture was, well, cancelled during the Soviet era.

I'll let Jim Treacher take us home.  "I’m just not stupid enough to believe that punishing people for being born in Russia [or born a Russian cat, or chucking a rock at a Russian-cuisine restaurant in a North American city] will do anything to stop any of this."