Writing about Operation Yellowhammer – the UK’s emergency plan for a no-deal Brexit – some time ago, I suggested that the songbird referenced in the name had inspired the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Thus it very closely resembles the second “da-da-da-dah!” of Beethoven’s intro (the first features a “major third” instead). If any songbird deserves a joint writing credit for the Fifth Symphony, that’s the one. Infamously, the late President Mitterrand of France ate ortolan on his last New Year’s dinner, a week before he died in 1996. BBC broadcasts to mainland Europe then were always introduced by the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.

Source: The Irish Times April 13, 2019 06:56 UTC