Now that's what i call a G(L)ove compartment...

Wednesday 12 October 2011 19:00 EDT

On one level, it was an everyday case of theft from a parked car. But on another, the mystery was altogether less mundane: who on earth would keep a 28-CD collection of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov (yes, that's unabridged), the collected speeches of Ronald Reagan and Wagner's Parsifal in their glove compartment? Just the things to lighten a long motorway journey when the conversation flags.

Clearly, this was no ordinary crime-victim. The polymath and Skoda owner in question turned out to be Michael Gove, the Education Secretary and (aptly) the man charged with the cerebral wellbeing of the nation.

The car was found burnt out at Wormwood Scrubs, London. Sarah Vine, Gove's journalist wife, lamented the loss of "a middle-class treasure trove... With the help of a forensic psychologist it should be fairly easy to arrest the perpetrators. How many Dostoevsky-addicted, Reagan-loving hoodies can there be living in White City?"

But lest you feel the minister is no man of the people, the cache also included Mumford & Sons' Sigh No More, the album of choice for oh-so in-touch politicians.

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Now that's what i call a G(L)ove compartment...