It’s reassuring to see I’m not the only one who wonders how people can make it through life without, at least occasionally, sitting down quietly, reading a good book, and letting the words and phrases run gently around one’s head until they bring a new angle to one’s view of the world.

Socrates worried about the impact of new media 2,300 years ago and we’ve muddled through not too badly ever since, but Dennis Healey deplored the lack of “hinterland” in the politicians of the 1980s and I can’t imagine that getting any better on a diet of textbites, Twitter and Facebook…