Cartoon in this week’s The New Yorker. What’s the dealio with all the standing ovations the last number of years? You’d think we were watching a Franz Liszt-Niccolò Paganini smackdown every night of the week, with Farinelli grinding over a row of crush cars in his monster truck. Standing ovations for unexceptional performances – that is to say, performances that are absolutely fine, but not exactly life-altering – is the shadow pandemic nobody talks about. Worst of all is when the numbnuts in front of me stand, blocking my view of the stage, making me look like a numbnut, because now I have to stand too!