H. L. Mencken

As a kid, I was school swot, but I used to hang around the billiard halls, learning that Geordie sense of humour, mixing with low-lifes. They were the sort who'd pick your pocket and then say 'Here you are lad, here's tuppence, get yourself some chips'. I was a good rugby player, a good runner, so I fitted in at Cambridge quite easily.

Beethoven was a deeply political man in the broadest sense of the word. He was not interested in daily politics, but concerned with questions of moral behaviour and the larger questions of right and wrong affecting the entire society.