Given the ongoing threat to the funding of such music education in schools it certainly gives us pause for thought.

Walk into any public square or shopping mall at this time of year and an encounter with a traditional Christmas carol is well-nigh unavoidable. We may not sing them ourselves with anything like the frequency or fervor we once did at church but the tunes themselves defy relegation to our past.

The announcement earlier last week that the Italian Government will match any new spending on new counterterrorism measures with spending on arts and culture seems to have come and gone by without much comment.