There was someone on the radio earlier who at age something or other, old, is just learning to read and write. In my proto-quasi-pseudofoxy-job (I'm hoping it coalesces into a real job soon) there is much talk of literacy. But 'literacy' is mostly defined by a proficiency in the English language and I am not sure if that really matters so much these days. Of course it is extremely helpful, unless you live in the Chinese countryside or in another non-english speaking culture, that can't be denied. But, again, if it were not for certain social pressures we could probably get on very well without it. i could live in rural China quite comfortably without needing to read or write Chinese if I could speak the language and had my computer and internet. Numeracy seems much more useful than literacy these days. Even writing a blog like this seems an anachronism when I could be making a video or podcast. Or tweeting and facebooking short and simple sentences if i want to write. Perhaps subconsciously many children now realise they don't need to read and write and indeed it is only recently that everyone was expected to be able to read and write. 'Don't need any of that book learning to grow turnips!'
And then you did because of all complicated regulations and new farming techniques and all the rest. Now you don't again because you can watch the video.
Writing is a human invention, a codified system and perhaps it is starting to lose
- or loose as I prefer to say to emphasise the oo. And you can't have too much oooh! in your life, can you?- its usefulness.
Isn't it time for a new and universal code to begin appear?
The same 'illiterate woman' said she could only eat ready meals and put them in the microwave because she could not read how to cook properly. Now that simple statement is so loaded with meaning that I could write a book* about it.
I don't have time, unless one of you offer to pay me, so I leave it to you to think about and tell me your conclusions. If you can write.
Interestingly there is also a huge reluctance on the part of the literate to write in front of other people.
Now on with my plans to gentrify my back yard and make my tiny working class terraced house into a delightful urban mews cottage. The hanging baskets call.
I noticed that he sulky Rowan has turfed out the two obese and lower middle class pigeons that started to nest in her branches. Actually I found them quite sweet as I watched them arrive with their IKEA 4 BIRDS twigs and spend ages fussing and cooing about where to put them. 'I think it looks best here, don't you?', 'Yes dear.' 'But perhaps if we put it over there... Now that looks better doesn't it?' 'Yes dear.' 'No the colour doesn't quite match the other twigs...' and so on. I could tell the Rowan was more than a little miffed and had been hoping for a better class of bird to move into the neighbourhood. Bullfinches perhaps. Anyway she has managed to expel the poor old pigeons, at least for the time being. For a tree she is such a snob.
* the expression 'write book about it.' is itself something of an anachronism. Nowadays it should be 'make a film about it' or 'make a podcast'.