Students prepare for a ballet class at the Iraqi school of Music and Ballet in Baghdad, 2006. Photograph: David Furst/AFP/Getty
We take access to the arts for granted in this country, but spare a thought for the citizens of Baghdad, where, as this article in the Wall Street Journal describes, you can be killed for carrying a musical instrument in the street. And yet, with extraordinary courage, people keep on carrying and playing them.
One musician plays at a ballet school - ironically, one set up as part of Saddam Hussein's secularisation programme - where a teacher risks her own life to, as she puts it, "give the children something beautiful to think about".
Do read this, it puts our daily gripes into perspective.
