Some days you get that hopeless feeling – that sense that the mountain of ignorance is so high and so wide that you, chipping away with your tiny pick, can’t possibly make a dent in its vastness.

Days such as the one on which your “Jane Austen” Google alert brings you a gem like : a WikiAnswers question enquiring, “Is Jane Austen’s maiden name Eyre?”

As I write this, the question remains unanswered. Perhaps because a simple “no” hardly seems sufficient.