‘“Shrunk to half its proper size, leathery in consistency and greenish-blue in colour, with bean-sized nodules on its surface.” Yes, readers, I am of course describing Ludwig van Beethoven’s liver.’

From "Go Easy, Mr. Beethoven, That Was Your Fifth!" by the late great British comic writer Alan Coren (1938-2007), describing the great composer's organ, pickled through a lifetime of boozing and preserved in a jar for scientists to hover over in rapt solemnity. What a fine coincidence it would be if today were his birthday as well as Beethoven's. It isn't, but it is Ludwig's 240th, and whatever the condition of his liver his music's still the greatest, no mean achievement amid the noisy clatter of civilization's decline and fall. I salute them both.