I have a new Comment and FAQs page complete with a comment form. My first question comes from someone who sent it as a test for the form, but who I will answer anyway.

The question is, “What was Beethoven’s favorite fruit?”

Well. Let me tell you a story, my friend.

Once upon a time in Vienna, when the town was not connected to any sort of questionable meat that comes in a tin can, there was a brilliant young man called Ludwig and a terrible, mangey cat named Meowthoven. As it happened, Ludwig was a composer of nine symphonies, five piano concertos, thirty-two piano sonatas and sixteen string quartets. Meowthoven was officially the composer of innumerable heat-fueled wailings and the occasional hiss and growl when the pluckiest of squirrels (Do they have squirrels in Vienna? Let’s pretend they do.) Anyway, when the pluckiest of squirrels dared to cross his windowsill.

You see, Meowthoven was particularly fond of acorns, which made him unusual for a cat and an enemy to neighborhood squirrels. But his use for the acorns was even more unusual still. Every day that Ludwig sat at the piano forte to compose, Meowthoven would stalk the space beneath the composer’s bench and swat an acorn as hard as he could at the composer’s shins when he chose the wrong note. So unofficially, Meowthoven was the composer of nine symphonies, five concertos, and thirty-two sonatas. (Something about a string quartet made him frisky, and so he could not swat at Ludwig’s legs when he was wailing for lady cats nearby.)

Later, when Ludwig was deaf and had his ear to the floor, Meowthoven would plant his furry self against Ludwig’s forehead, and swat the acorns right at his nose.

From such a close proximity, an acorn can leave quite a welt. And let’s not talk about what happens when you get an acorn to the eye.

However, there were days when Ludwig felt a sense of respite. For when Meowthoven could not find any more acorns – whether because the squirrels had wisened up and kept their stash away from Meowthoven’s territory, or because Meowthoven was starting to lose one of his senses as well – he resorted to whatever fruit was left around the house.

Grapes are much softer than an acorn to the nose. And that, my friends, is why grapes are Beethoven’s favorite fruit.

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