In praise of ... a hinterland

It was the former chancellor, Denis Healey, who introduced the notion of "hinterland" into political biography. It worried him that Mrs Thatcher appeared to have no absorbing interests or passions outside politics - and who's to say he was wrong? If she could have unwound over chess, watercolours or even bowling (preferably not alone) recent British political history might have been very different.

So it is encouraging to read the New York Times's account of the US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice's other life as an amateur chamber musician. Once a fortnight Ms Rice forgets Iraq, Iran, Israel/Palestine and the future of the Peruvian left and settles down to an evening of piano quintets in her Watergate apartment.

At one such evening recently the group knocked off Schumann, Shostakovitch and Brahms quintets before rewarding themselves with a little cheese and wine. Good for Condi. It is impossible to prove that she is a better politician making better decisions as a result of this time-out from her main job, but instinct tells you it is probably so.

Churchill found mental sustenance, thinking time, escape, consolation and inspiration from both painting and brick-laying. In today's unforgiving zeitgeist he would be written off as a skiver. Ms Rice says her next ambition is to learn Brahms' second piano concerto - a work many hardened professionals shy away from. But possibly no harder than brokering peace between the Shia and the Sunnis.