THE BBC, by charter and by licence, has an absolute and incontrovertible responsibility to artistic patronage which cannot be shrugged off when the economic climate gives excuse. The BBC’s fundamental purpose as a public service broadcaster is to provide value to many different audiences.

But the BBC is more than just a broadcaster – it aims to provide a public service in the widest possible sense, and it has always sought to stimulate and enrich the UK’s cultural and creative life. It sustains the important tradition of live orchestral music through its in-house orchestras, of which BBC Scotland has one of the finest in Europe.

It supports new music across all genres, through an unrivalled commitment to broadcasting live sessions, concerts and festivals and it remains the largest commissioner of new music in the world and patron of the world’s largest classical music festival.

Equally important is the BBC's mission to bring new audiences to the arts. Without the BBC I would not be a jazz musician. I would never have had the world of jazz or classical music opened to me in the way it was. I would never have had the urge to become a radio presenter.

It was the encouraging and informed voices of Humphrey Littleton, Alan Dell, Sir Michael Parkinson, Benny Green, Russell Davies, Sheila Tracey and the musicians of the BBC Radio Big Band who guided me to a first love and a career that has been a joy.

But the decision by editors at the BBC to cut jazz, classical music and piping from Radio Scotland ("Row erupts over BBC Scotland plan to axe music programmes", heraldscotland, January 17) risks preventing future generations from discovering this wonderful music. The decision is, to it put very plainly, cultural barbarism. Access to culture isn’t an entitlement. It is a basic human right.
Stephen Duffy, Presenter, The Jazz House, BBC Radio Scotland, 2006-2017, Glasgow

Upgrade instead of demolishing

YOUR report on the situation regarding the Wyndford tower blocks in Glasgow ("Don’t gelignite our homes... city tower block campaigners in last-minute plea", The Herald, January 25) includes quotes from people who have moved out of the flats and fully support their demolition. I can fully understand their desire to move from a tower block that's not in its prime to a new, modern house. What I can't understand is that Wheatley Homes, with £73 million to invest, is not investing that money in upgrading the flats to house people currently desperate to have a home of their own.

Has anyone on the housing lists and unable to find a home been asked what they think about demolishing 600 homes and only then building half that number of houses?
Patricia Fort, Glasgow

There is hope for Christianity

ANOTHER negative portrayal of the Church of Scotland from Rosemary Goring ("Face it: the Kirk is not longer our national church, The Herald, January 25). She omits any reference to the SNP and Greens' political de-Christianisation and demoralisation of Scotland.

The Church of Scotland is partly responsible for its current predicament. Its history of nominal Christianity has led to the present-day culture of theological liberalism, bureaucratic centralisation and pseudo-business strategy concerned only with money and property.

Christianity is based on the resurrection of Jesus. Independent evangelical congregations are flourishing. There is always hope.
Rev Dr Robert Anderson, Dundonald

Non-binary show is a disgrace

IT is a sad reflection on higher education in Scotland that the University of Edinburgh is showing a non-binary production of Jesus Christ Superstar ("Student play casts Jesus as non-binary", The Herald, January 25). If this isn’t blasphemy, then what is it? Anyone checking the Bible will see that Jesus is the son of God and the disciples were all male. Try this with Mohammed and see the reaction.

What an absolute disgrace and why isn’t the Church complaining?
Michael Watson, Glasgow

It's all Greek to me

GORDON Fisher (Letters, January 24) interestingly argues for an Anglo-Saxon linguistic origin for the modern proliferation of "like" in the speech of the young. Intellectually, I would add a still more ancient precedent.

When the greatest of the classical Greek historians, Thucydides, reports Pericles's famous funeral speech in the winter of 431 BC, he introduces it by the words elege toiade, literally "he spoke in the following way" meaning that he doesn't guarantee verbatim accuracy but offers the sense and meaning.

So when I hear the young putting "like" before direct speech, I welcome it as an acknowledgement (however unwitting) of the fallibility of human memory when it comes to exact reminiscence. If this is not too optimistic, good luck to them.
Dr Ronald A Knox, Glasgow

Beyond our ken

WITH his indicated Edinburgh home base I'm surprised your contributor, Alistair Easton (Letters, January 24) doesn't come up with the suggestion of the substituting for "like" of that utterance beloved of many furth of Harthill, namely "ken". I would have thought it a front-runner.

Just sayin', ken.
Ian Sommerville, Largs

Boaty and the booty

I NOTICE from your Quotes of the Day feature (The Herald, January 26) that haggis was shipped to Antartica for the Burns celebration dinner there and that the vessel used to transport it was the RRS Sir David Attenborough. Would that in fact be the vessel more commonly known as Boaty Mcboatface?
James Martin, Bearsden

Loser I' the pudden race

THE following fragment was found by archaeologists excavating the night soil midden at Ellisland. It is Burns’s response to his first encounter with a vegan haggis:

NEW SELKIRK GRACE
O some hae Quorn, and look forlorn
and some like Quorn but lack it.
We hae but Quorn. I hide my scorn.
But och, I’m fair disjaskit.
Norman McCandlish, Aberfeldy

Tooth to tell

TODAY'S cartoon on the widening dental equality gap (The Herald, January 25), reminded me that the toothbrush was invented in Glasgow.

If it had been invented anywhere else, it would be called a teethbrush.
Colin Gunn, Glasgow

The Herald:

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