As often happens, it’s a mixed bag tonight.

First up, today is February 6th –  a date all Manchester United supporters over 55 will never forget. As with the Kennedy assassinations – and the deaths of John Lennon and Diana Spencer – love or loathe the victims, most of us from that era can remember where we were when the news of the Munich air disaster broke.

But what very few journalists write about is the period after February 6th 1958 when Manchester United struggled to rise above mediocrity. I remember only too well the years 1959-1962, when the Reds achieved little better than mid-table positions in the old First Division…before the signing of Denis Law began the climb back to supremacy.

But that’s the thing when you ‘support’ your club: it’s the ‘thick and thin’ thing.

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I will admit of late to having poked fun at the Greek PM’s self-definition as a ‘libertarian Marxist’. For me, that’s the all-time sold gold oxymoron. But I suspect we are dealing with little more than ‘lost in translation’ on this topic: since taking the trouble to look at Syriza’s philosophy in more detail, I find myself increasingly attracted to it.

This is probably because it is much more communal mutuality based than All-knowing State as typified by KKE – a reality that probably explains why KKE’s constipated ideological hardness will never engage with Tsipras and his inner circle.

Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan novelist, wrote, “I don’t believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people.”

I think that’s right on the money: there is no such thing, for example, as trickle-down wealth…or indeed, the naive idea that rich philanthropists can replace the State as balm for the wounds of poverty. That might have represented a viable idea in the 19th century when religious guilt about material wealth still held sway: but even then, it created the Two Nations of which Tory Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli wrote with great compassion. Today? Forget it.

As one commenter on Syriza has written, ‘they intend to continue working in a cooperative manner and to keep organizing more people and building autonomous institutions that can support a Left government when it needs to confront the old structures. Finally, some have a clear understanding that they are experimenting with new ways of organizing and relating collectively, which may serve as a basis for dual power or even a post-capitalist society’.

Blimey: the Left embracing new ideas…what next?

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I’m still trying to get to grips with Tanks. It seems to me there are only so many kinds of tanks: battle tanks, septic tanks, overflow tanks, tank tops, petrol tanks and think tanks.

By far the most recent of these is the Think Tank. From the day the term was invented, I’ve been confused as to how anyone can think outside the box if they’re in a tank: even if they escape from the box, right, they’re still inside a tank.

The old joke about tanks, of course, is that of the Italian tank….which, in times of war, has one forward and five reverse gears. So I’m left wondering whether Mario Draghi at the ECB is trying to break through the Yanis Varoufakis lines with an Italian Think Tank.

If so, I fear his offensive is doomed to failure.

Related at The Slog: Don Drageone, and the doubts about who he really works for