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This, according to Albert Einstein, himself a competent amateur violinist, was the best approach to Bach’s music. Little did he know that the same approach would do wonders for today’s classical radio stations.

Broadening the scope of Einstein’s advice and following it would make our own BBC 3 infinitely better, though it would still fall far short of being good.

Chris Bryant, shadow immigration minister, has belied his party affiliation by getting the facts right: ‘I have very high levels of youth unemployment in my constituency; it has risen by some 200 per cent in the last year,’ he told Newsnight.

There’s just no satisfying some people. In fact, as our Chancellor is finding out, there’s no satisfying any people.

 The Right of his party are accusing him of not being sufficiently like Margaret Thatcher, God rest her soul. The Left of his party and both wings of Labour and LibDems are accusing him of being too much like Margaret Thatcher, may she rot in hell. Presumably for fear of libel litigation, no one is accusing George of just being George.

This is from my Russian correspondent: the Chechen Embassy in the USA has delivered a note to the White House, requesting that Chechnya not be confused with the Czech Republic whenever the origin of the Boston terrorists is discussed.

One can understand that Chechnya doesn’t wish others to claim the distinction of having raised such upstanding youngsters. But considering that the Tsarnaev brothers never actually lived in Chechnya, perhaps we ought to give credit where it’s really due.

Carrying musical ‘culture’ to the masses sounds like a good idea. But it isn’t.

Those in favour claim that classical performances will lift a cultural innocent up to their level. In real life, rare exceptions aside, he drags them down to his.

These days most people don’t know the difference between sentiment and sentimentality, and even those who do still seem to favour the latter.

Hence the reaction to the tragic death of Martin Richards, the eight-year-old boy killed, along with two others, in the explosion at the finishing line of the Boston marathon.

…for submitting your most impressive novel Robinson Crusoe for our consideration in view of publishing. We at Shoddy Heightened found it highly inspiring and, at base, bordering on genius. What impressed us most is the courage with which you tackled the issues of multiculturalism, racism and, implicitly, sexual diversity.

Francophones will recognise that I’m playing on language differences here. Un crime in French describes only a felony punishable by at least 10 years in prison. Everything else is called une infraction.

Dave would love to be just like Margaret Thatcher, but only in one respect: her ability to win three straight elections outright.

But he’ll never match Lady Thatcher in this respect because he’s unlike her in every other. One demonstrable difference is that he isn’t a real statesman – in fact, he isn’t a real anything other than a power seeker. Margaret Thatcher wanted power too, but not for its own sake. Power was for her but the vehicle; the good of the country, the destination.

We’ve all said in the past things we’d rather others didn’t remember at present. Some of those things were silly, some ignorant, some reflected our understanding as it was then but no longer is now.

The ability to look back at one’s past pronouncements and either wince or smile self-deprecatingly is a good human trait. It reflects a capacity for unbiased self-analysis and therefore a potential for self-improvement.