I have, nevertheless, been doing so since the Vienna New Years Day Concert in 2014. Barenboim was conducting, and, as he marched on stage for the traditional final encore with an imperious flick of his baton, rather than crashing straight into the opening chords, a snare drummer tapped out a call to arms – tappity tappity tappity tap – trrr rrrr – RAT TAT TAT!

A whole set of emotions welled up. That sort of rhythm is designed to do that, meant to rouse the listener into a heightened emotional state and carry them away to take the Emperors’ Schilling; and visions of drumhread recruitment in towns and villages all across the Austro Hungarian Empire – and the rest of Europe – invaded my mind, along with a historical memory of what happened next that none of those swept up in war euphoria, or war fatalism, a hundred years before could possibly have had.

Painting of a soldier undergoing surgery by surgeon and painter Henry Tonks circa 2015 from Faces of Britain by Simon Schama.

A quote from the same book. The nature of trench warfare, punctuated as it was by futile forays over the top, had exposed the heads of soldiers, nothwithstanding their helmets, to taking fire in the face. Exit wounds were gaping. Some shells had been designed to spray schrapnel, to devastating effect. Magnesium fuses were encased within, expressly intended to catch fire when lodged in tissue, resulting in the burning away of noses, eyes and cheeks.

More than 20 million dead at the end of it. And a comparable number wounded or mutilated. And World War 2 was worse. World War 3 has been unthinkable because there would be no one left at the end of it, brief though it would be.

Yet now we have the uncrowned heads of Europe and their media shils single mindedly trying to make it thinkable. Preparing us for a war with Russia by the end of the decade. Mark Rutte thinking he can succeed where Charles XII, Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler failed.

Posing a war of choice as “defence”, as they always do, as every power did in 1914, avoiding any mention of the nuclear risks, avoiding any mention that they already outspend the Russians 3.5 to 1, avoiding any mention that Russia has neither the intention nor the capacity to invade the rest of Europe, avoiding mention of any alternative course, as if “war, war” is better than “jaw, jaw”.

This is part of a “whole society” approach aiming to make us stand to attention and salute without question. The most dangerous aspect of this sort of war fatalism, linked to escalation in arms build ups and suppression of dissent as treason, is that it poses war as inevitable – and when all sides accept that that is the case, war is what you get.

None of us has any interest in that. Not least because we’d all be dead at the end of it.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin did it again in this year’s concert. He made the usual speech – “music can unite all of us because we live on the same planet” – before the encores, which felt peculiarly hollow this year, given the way the drums are beating all over Europe. Then off into Blue Danube and Radetsky, with the drum call to start and the well heeled Viennese spiessburger audience clapping enthusiastically along in a joyful romp towards Armageddon, just like so many of their ancestors did in 1914.

In an ironic counterpart, the final song in Jules Holland’s New Year Hootananny the previous evening was a singalong version of “Enjoy yourself (its later than you think)”.

New Year resolution for 2026, to beat a different rhythm and break up the march to war.