I fluttered briefly onto X to discover what the world was serving up, and paid the price.

Reading headlines of uproar in the White House, I continued to watch muted videos of Trump, Zelensky and Vance shouting it out. Words like dictate, war, gamble, apologise, trouble. The non-verbal cues were stupefying. I did not have the heart to turn up the sound. It already was winding me up, putting me on edge. I wanted a Friday evening of calm as I journeyed home.

As we moved down the runway, on flight mode, I sought out downloaded music to manage this oval fever, placed in my brain.

Climbing to altitude, I travelled through a phase of sadness, and found a little song to match the mood.

“The world is but a broken toy

Its pleasures hollow, false its joy”

When first I heard this plaintive melody from Princess Ida (Gilbert & Sullivan), I recall being in awe of its beauty. It comes in a tender moment of Gilbert’s story, in which the school mistress, Lady Psyche, surrounded by students in disguise, reveals to them a truth.

We must accept human nature, and events, for what they are. The world may bear us false witness, and mess with our serenity. Sometimes it’s a busted flush, spinning on a busted axel.

“Unreal its loveliest hue, alas;

Its pains alone are true, alas.

Its pains alone are true”

We’ve reached cruising altitude, and I look down on the twinkling below. From a distance, all seems well.

Yet the bully is in the playground. Vile words are exchanged; words that cannot be rescinded. The alpha lads are red-faced in argument. It is all so ugly, though I don’t understand enough nuance to explain exactly why.

What a fuck-up.

***

My second musical perch is somewhat by chance.

As we cross the Alps, things get bumpy. I decide I need a coffee, and a shot of strong music.

Years back, I tried to learn a complex operatic fugue for a concert, in which I played a small role. Truth is, I put hours into learning those notes, but the music needed a level of precision sight-reading which I did not have. The three-minute piece for a massive cast sounded like drunken noise.

“Tutto nel mondo è burla”, or ‘Everything in the world is a joke’

This closing ensemble is from Verdi’s last opera, Falstaff, in which the eponymous Mr F. leads a nihilistic meditation on the idea of ‘Fuck all of it, because life is idiocy, anyway’. The music is dizzying on the first listen – like thick-boiled soup with too many random ingredients.

Our producer kindly switched out that Falstaff piece in the end, and I was off the hook. To my surprise, I ended up falling in love with the fugue I once had so resented. Freed from the need to sing it, I could listen to its collective power.

Old man Verdi was saying something profound. The fugue is a metaphor for life – the struggle for supremacy; the folly of ego; the madness of mankind. Each voice claws for light, demanding to be heard. The sound builds until there is a joyous eruption at the end. When you accept that life is brimming with stupidity, things become more liveable.

***

What is this Idiocy Diplomacy we’re being subjected to?

I’m in search of balance, and fall upon a boon as we cross the Irish Sea.

Young Benson Boone blasted across my transom with a spellbinding live performance at the 2025 Grammys. This is an American Freddie, with a spritz of Bible and a dash of Cowboy, just for fun.

It is his delivery of ‘Beautiful Things’ that caught me. The lyrics are so refreshing, coming from a 22 year old. He acknowledges suffering, expresses gratitude, and remarkable humility. And all of this he delivers with a joyful physicality which cannot but uplift.

“But I know the things He gives me, He can take away…

Don’t take these beautiful things that I’ve got”.

Boone’s music is soaring, exciting, and really very simple. I feel he has something important to contribute, now, at the start of his career. I begin to see him as antidote to all our brokenness; all this folly.

Yes Benson. Yes.

As we come in to land I turn up the volume, and let him rip.