“I CAN’T EVEN DO IT,” exclaimed Michael Rosen, “the tongue-twister of it!” He was on a Radio 4 ?programme that I caught by chance, The First Jazz Poet. There’s still more than a fortnight to catch it online.

I liked everything about it but the title. The subject was the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I can see that the words of “The Woodlark”, which tripped up Rosen’s tongue, might remind someone of scat singing: