Apparently there’s a faction of folks over the pond who are upset with the recent appointment of a new head for the Edinburgh festival. So naturally there’s a Facebook page dedicated to slagging him. Perhaps it also lists what celebrity lapdog breed he is, his score on Bejewled! and what items he needs for his vampire war.

His critics are outraged that Barley was appointed less than two months after the Lighthouse, Scotland’s national centre for architecture and design, of which he was executive director, went into administration with the loss of 57 jobs. Founded in 1999 in Glasgow, the Lighthouse was funded by public money and commercial income, but failed after the government refused to bail it out when it ran into financial difficulties.

Barley had not been mentioned even as an outsider in the selection process, which began after the resignation of the previous director, Catherine Lockerbie, before this year’s festival in August. The applicants were believed to have included James Runcie, director of the Bath Literature Festival, and Alex Clark, until recently editor of Granta magazine.