I hate nationalism, jingoism, chauvinism, patriotism and all the isms which have led to human misery. As a result I find it hard to get excited by being a citizen of the country of my birth. However, there are certain things which make me (in spite of myself) proud to be British. Yesterday evening the BBC broadcast The Last Night of the Proms, the final concert in the 2006 season. Of course there are similar concerts elsewhere and I suspect the standards are as high or higher. Of course some of the flag-waving and cheering is silly. But there is something about the BBC's continuing commitment to supporting music and musical appreciation that is neither self-righteous nor patronising. It is simply the right thing to do and they do it brilliantly.

Incidentally the guy who runs the Proms is Nick Kenyon. I first met him around 1980 when I was responsible for Oxford Journals. One of the key journals was Early Music. It was edited by its founder, a brilliant musicologist from New Zealand called John Thomson. He edited the journal brilliantly but it constantly lost money and there were innumerable glitches and feuds. He had a staff of ten including picture researchers, in-house copy editors etc - all for a quarterly journal. My job was to try to turn round the finances of the journal which inevitably involved cutting staff. Every suggestion I made was met by the assertion that all cost savings would result in the collapse of editorial standards. After any number of rows and heart-searching John eventually decided to leave and by the best luck in the world we were able to hire Nick Kenyon to replace him. He cut the staff from ten to two, regularised the publication schedule, maintained editorial standards and turned the journal from a cash leaker into a cash generator within two years. The journal is still the best in its field and I bet it still makes money. You don't have to lose money to have the highest editorial standards - it just takes a good editorial manager.

My two book recommendations of the moment are both transantlantic, both by women and both titles incorporate an apostrophe. Go check out Elisabeth Hyde's The Abortionist's Daughter and Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children.

I am in the middle of preparing for a speech I am giving this week to a big conference of librarians. If you want to have input into what I'm going to say let me know fast.