Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

When an Arts Council dignitary is reported to believe that Britain is on the brink of producing "the greatest art yet created", instinct tells you that things are in a bad way. When the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport chips in with the view that talk of a "Renaissance" comparable with that in Italy in the fifteenth century is "not an overstatement. It's exactly true", suspicions harden. Never trust a man who distinguishes between truth and "exact" truth.