Radio 3’s Music Matters, and what made the profoundest impact was how genuinely Latvians, from composers to the prime minister, from opera stars to folk musicians (and you can hear interviews with all of them on 12 July), felt that it was their singing tradition that was their small country’s greatest unifying force and cultural phenomenon. Their recent history, above all in the “singing revolution” of the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 90s, shows how important the mass-song events of the song festivals (in which tens of thousands of people get together to sing in events held every five years) were in mobilising a unity of peaceful but irrefutable purpose among the Latvian population, leading to their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

In theThe proposed Australia A tour to South Africa, due to start next week, will not go ahead, with the Australian Cricketers' Association announcing today that the players have chosen not take part as a result of the ongoing stalemate over a new Memorandum of Understanding.

The ACA released a statement confirming an earlier resolution passed at a meeting of the ACA executive last weekend that players would not agree to tour unless an MOU "on fair terms" was in place, and while any out-of-contract players thus remained unemployed.

Quick Single: "Disappointed" Cricket Australia respond to Australia A tour cancellation

The Australia A tour was to feature four-day and limited-overs fixture and provide players on the cusp of national selection a chance to further their international claims as well as gain experience