Question time

Last night, like every Thursday, the BBC broadcast their program Question Time in which a selected group of six politicians and public figures - generally journalists or intellectuals or businessmen - debate current affairs and answer questions from the public. The time for public questions came, and the conductor singled out a thin young man in glasses sitting next to a pretty blonde girl. He visibly gathered his courage and said: "This is not actually for the panel, but for the lovely lady beside me. Sonya, will you marry me?"

Among a storm of applause from the public and every member of the panel, the conductor advised the young lady that under the rules of the show she was under no obligation to give an answer, but as soon as she had recovered her breath, she answered "Yes, please!"

The Da Vinci code

The impact of The Da Vinci Code on any person who knows history - any period of history from ancient Rome to the present day - is slow, cumulative, and horrendous. One has to come to terms with the fact that it has been read by millions; that our world is so dreadfully ignorant of the very basics of its own history, its own artistic heritage, its own intellectual background, that so many, so many individual readers can actually bear to go through it without throwing it to the floor about the twentieth page in disgust. It is, in the old phrase, like watching a train wreck.

The novel is preceded by a page arrogantly titled "Fact," ( Read more... )