HE to Friendo: “Do you really believe that the best response is to prattle on about sanctions and post condemning tweets about Putin’s cruelty and moral depravity? To basically just watch this carnage while saying ‘oh, nom this is so horrible?’ The moment seemingly requires a more forceful and engaged response than talking about sanctions and seizing Putin’s assets.

“How many hundeds or thousands of innocent people are about to suffer violent death because of this maniac? Is it really that crazy to talk about doing something to save Ukrainians from the horror at their doorstep?

“In all seriousness, a concerted effort should be made to kill Putin. Slit his throat, cut him to ribbons, blow him into pieces. Seriously. He’s a madman, a bringer of death, a killer of innocent sheep. What he’s doing now is no better than Hitler invading Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Send in MI6 or Ethan Hunt and the Mission Impossible team or some kind of Day of the Jackal stealth assassin (Edward Fox) and end his life. Tom Cruse joined a Herman high command plot to kill Hitler in ‘43 — this is the same kind of thing. We approved of what Cruise tried to do. How can we not approve of a Putin hit?

I’m perfectly serious. If Hitler and his fellow high-command fanatics had been iced in ‘42, Rommel and other sensible Germans could have taken charge and wound things down. How many imprisoned Jews could have been saved if Hitler had been disposed of?

Friendo to HE: “You’ve officially watched too many movies, Jeff. Or, at least, believed too many of them. You think this is going to be solved by Ethan Hunt killing Putin? If it were that easy, we would do it. But it’s fantasy.”

HE to Friendo: “If this was 1941 or ’42, you would have written the same. ‘You’ve officially watched too many movies, Jeff. Or, at least, believed too many of them. You think this is going to be solved by Walter Pidgeon killing Hitler in Fritz Lang’s Manhunt? If it were that easy, we would do it. It’s fantasy.”