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Hello, I'm Natasha Froes and this is Spectator Out Loud.

Each week we ask a few of the writers from the magazine to read their pieces.

Coming up on the show, we have Matthew Paris on the next two years on the war in Ukraine.

Lionel Shriver is fighting her own war against words. And Gus Carter on the return of the bison.

First, Matthew Paris.

I awoke in the small hours last week and began worrying about the Ukraine war.

A friend had earlier taken me to task over the airy way I'd introduced an argument with the words,

once we've won the war in Ukraine, as though this was a simple matter and just a

question of when. But what does Wynne mean? Does the searchlight of our intelligence, backed

by what we already know, really illuminate the landscape ahead? Might things come to pass

that we just haven't thought of?

Even people as old as me remember wars that, though bloody and protracted, were fairly straightforward as narratives,

with clear and final objectives and, in story terms, a reasonably clear-cut ending.

The Second World War is an outstanding example. The Falklands are more minor but equally clear-cut ending. The Second World War is an outstanding example.

The Falklands are more minor but equally clear case.

We knew what winning meant.

Hitler and Galtieri knew what losing meant.

Even after the Korean War, there was a simple and permanent partition.

These were proper endings, followed by a stable state.

We imagine, I suppose, that the present Ukraine business will turn out like one of those.

Crudely, I thought at first, that the Russians should just be pulverized,

...