Pop music, across its countless iterations, is a vast, amazing, thrilling art form. All life is in it. It stands for itself. The same is true of literature, but nobody feels compelled to toss Philip Roth a grammy just to prove it.

Lyrics should not need to stand on their own many of [Bob] Dylan's do, but in common with other great lyricists, he has written plenty that falters on the page but soars in song.

Bob Dylan, Nobel laureate. A new fact so shocking that even the year's most notable deaths have not outdone it for the volume (in both senses) of instant reaction so divisive, it makes Brexit, the Labour leadership and the US Presidential election seem lesser ruptures.

The general sentiment among the Yeas is, no accolade is too high for their man and the Nobel being, literally, the gold standard among prizes, it is surely his [Bob Dylan] due.

The [Nobel] prize is for literature.[Bob] Dylan is a songwriter. Here is where the argument starts to get interesting, because here is where it is no longer a question of either cultural orthodoxy or personal taste.

Plenty more of the Nays sound perfectly sincere, though. They may genuinely dislike [Bob] Dylan they may even enjoy or admire him, but just don't think he's all that. Fair enough. The reaction of such folk seems to be chiefly amazement tinged with befuddlement: they've given him what? You're kidding me.

All doctrine is ultimately the death of joy - even when the doctrine is the elevation of the light above the serious, because joy is too varied and elusive ever to confine itself to one or the other.

How heartening it is to know that Ken Loach is still out there making committed, polemical cinema, so long as you don't have to watch it. Never go near a Ken Loach film unless you're trying to sleep with a socialist. If you are, however, Land And Freedom should do the trick.