Ever pondered this question. I have. Millions of us have, but, what does Art do for us ? Just what indeed. I know now, and it's a most beautiful summation: Art "...gives shape to our emotions, makes them visible, and in so doing places a seal of eternity upon them".

The seal of eternity. I love that sense of consecration, of things being handed on from hand to hand to be appraised and discussed, critiqued and enjoyed, argued and fought over, loved, and it's antithesis, hated. Never static, always moving on.

I found these passionate words in a novel of Muriel Barbery's - The Elegance of Hedgehogs - which I devoured in one afternoon sat on a park seat in Vichy last week.

Vichy was a breakthrough trip: I did as I promised myself I would - read until the muscles in my eyeballs twitched and when I was n't doing that, I simply sat marvelling at the huge flocks of starlings flashing over the river to their roosts every sunset and the crackling, cawing rooks spiralling in their hundreds over the poplar trees before they headed towards to their night time home in the Esplanade.