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Hello and welcome to Spectator out loud. Each week we choose some of our favourite pieces

from the magazine and ask their writers to read them out loud. I'm Patrick Gibbons,

and on the podcast this week. Reporting from Riga, Lucas de Guttis interviews citizens affected

by Latvia's policy of expelling Russian speakers. Yacenda Maxton Graham argues that applause has no

place at funerals. Paying homage to the British composer Christopher Gunning,

who died last year, Richard Bratby argues that composers of ads, film soundtracks and TV

theme tunes should be taken more seriously. And in light of the revelation that Secret Service

agents were bitten 24 separate times in less than a year, Toby Young questions the Biden's choice of dog.

Up first, Lucas de Guttis.

At the age of 74, in Asse Novikova, who is ethnically Russian, was told she had to learn Latvian or she'd be deported.

I felt physically ill when the policy was announced, she tells me, when we meet in an office close to Riga City Centre.

I've lived here peacefully for 20 years.

There was no requirement for her to seek Latvian citizenship after the Cold War ended.

Then it was acknowledged that ethnic Russians, who make up a quarter of Latvia's 1.8 million population,

would coexist with ethnic Latvians.

But when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, this arrangement ended. If Latvia's non-citizens

had Russian citizenship, as Inessa did, they now had to apply for a new EU residence permit,

which meant learning Latvian. The new rules, which were introduced in the

...