Howard Jacobson deplores the recent vandalising of Eric Gill's sculpture at BBC Broadcasting House as a failure to understand the meaning of art.

'Art, we go on protesting, is not the artist, but some will always believe that whatever is fashioned by evil hands must itself be evil,' he writes.

'If art and the artist were not distinct, the word art itself would have no meaning. For it denotes manufacture and artifice... not simple equation or reflection.'

Producer: Sheila Cook Sound Engineer: Peter Bosher Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross