We were talking earlier about a radio programme I wish I’d heard yesterday.

Apparently someone has been researching in to whether our association of minor keys in music with melancholy or sadness is innate or caused by conditioning. Their conclusion is that it’s something we’re born with.

I’d never stopped to think about it before, I guess I’ve always taken it for granted that it’s something intrinsic in our nature.

But it got me wondering how you go about actually proving it.

You can hardly stick someone on a desert island for their first twenty years and then suddeny expose them to a blast of Mozart’s Requiem and watch their reaction.