It’s probably Azerbaijan that started the shooting in this latest round of fighting with neighboring Armenia. Which is not to say that it’s all Azerbaijan’s fault.

President Donald Trump declared “the dawn of a new Middle East” in Washington on Tuesday as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrein signed public agreements with Israel for the first time.

“I’ve got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel,” said Blackadder’s sidekick Baldrick in the BBC’s brilliant historical comedy series ‘Blackadder’. In fact, he said “I have a cunning plan” in almost every episode, but the plans hardly ever worked, and it became a popular catch-phrase.

“To lose one parent…may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness,” wrote Oscar Wilde in his play ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ in 1895.

Nine of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies have just promised not to apply for regulatory approval for any new Covid-19 vaccine before it has gone through all three phases of clinical study. Why would they do such a thing?

‘Residential schools’ were a common feature of European settler societies (except New Zealand) until quite late in the 20th century, and their purpose was not just to educate but to ‘deracinate’ their aboriginal pupils: that is, to cut them off from their roots. The Chinese government would reject the analogy with its last breath, but it is now doing the same thing.

There are eight Turks for every Greek, so you might think the Greeks have to fold. But Greece has the backing of France, Italy, Israel, Egypt, and practically every other country in the eastern Mediterranean and the Arab world, as well as the entire European Union, so it has just called the bet and raised it.

“India is emotional as decades of wait has ended,” declared India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, laying the cornerstone of a new temple in Ayodhya a week ago. “For years our Ram Lalla (the infant Lord Ram) lived beneath a tent; now he will reside in a grand temple.” As if infants cared about the size of their dwelling.

Beirut has been living with car bombs and air raids on a sporadic but continuing basis for so long that it would probably make sense to rebuild this time with shatterproof glass. The torrent of broken glass falling from a thousand shattered buildings probably accounted for half the 158 dead found so far in Beirut, and certainly for most of the 6,000 wounded.

An “October Surprise” in the United States is now almost inevitable, because that will be Donald Trump’s last chance to get re-elected legitimately. He might try to cling to office even if he loses the vote, but it would be a lot easier and neater if he actually won a majority in the Electoral College on 3 November.