Like Jonathan Freedland (The world’s in flames. But these are the ways I’ve found hope this summer amid the gloom, 8 August), I seek ways of finding hope in the face of overwhelming news. Jonathan rightly finds hope in sport and popular music.
There’s a category he misses. We are in the midst of the BBC Proms, and, here in Scotland, the Edinburgh International Festival, where, earlier this month, a large orchestra of teenagers from New York showed what joy can come from classical music. The young folk from NYO2 practised, worked together, took instruction from an inspiring conductor and produced a brilliant, ebullient wall of sound and harmony. And they had a whale of a time.
