It's late, I've just had a pint of lager, and I have a phone call I want to make really soon. So, just to say, by way of meeting my daily quota (one), that Stephen Pollard has up at his recently revamped blog one of his typically argumentative and in-your-face pieces to the effect that Beethoven is just plain better than the Beatles, so there. Which is a lot more true than false, I would say, if you are only allowed those two boxes to put your response in. Sample paragraphs:

We’ve been here before. Christopher Ricks came at it from the opposite perspective in the 1970s, arguing that Bob Dylan’s lyrics were great poetry. A couple of years ago he argued that Dylan’s song Not Dark Yet ranked alongside Keats's Ode to a Nightingale. Others have made similar comparisons, such as Eric Griffiths’ consideration of Talking Heads alongside William Empson in his Cambridge lectures during the late 1980s.

I look at what they say, at their specific, detailed, academic attempts to equate the two, and my reaction is simply to laugh. To me, it’s self-evidently preposterous – about as convincing as arguing that a finger beating time on a desk is as musically rich an experience as an Angela Hewitt performance of a Bach Partita.

Okay. Keats's Ode to a Nightingale outscores Bob Dylan's Not Dark Yet in the Pollard great-ometer.

But what about Salieri compared to Benny Goodman at the height of his considerable powers? How about the (numerous) wind quintets of Reicha, compared to … Jimmy Hendrix? Which wins between the Concerto for Two Clarinets in E Flat Major op. 91 by Franz Krommer (1759-1831) – a work of which I am very fond, especially when it is played as well as Kalman Berkes (sprinkle central European squiggles to taste) and Tomoko Takashima play it, on the Naxos CD of this piece, together with the two Krommer solo clarinet concertos op. 35 and op. 36 – and, say, Echo Beach by Martha and the Muffins (also terrific in my opinion)? I'm just trying to establish a principle here, the principle being that Pollard is not making nearly as much sense as he seems to think he is.

Of course a great orange is better than a bad apple, and a great Ferrari is better than a clapped-out Ford Fiesta. But how does a clapped out Ferrari compared to a brand new Ford Whatever-eo, fresh off the Ford assembly line?

What I'm really saying here is: category error! Maybe Christopher Ricks and Eric Griffiths were indeed trying to "equate" this thing with that thing, although personally I doubt that they were doing any such thing. But I don't "equate" the Rolling Stones with Haydn merely because the two of them have some musical virtues in common, which they do.

If I can also find it in five minutes I'll link to the 2 Blowhards piece which says that marking works of art out of a hundred and arranging them in order of merit is a mug's game. Otherwise I'll just mention that one of them did say this, somewhere, somewhen. (Couldn't find it quickly. Maybe part of the previous sentence will turn purple at a later hour.)

However, although as a music critic Pollard doesn't do it for me, as a provocateur journalist he certainly knows his business. He is bating the likes of me with this piece, and I have risen to the bate by responding in the required manner. I hope he's happy. Seriously, I hope he's happy. I mean that. We have many friends in common.