pumpkinstrokemarrow

Compensation at the National Gallery took the form of some rather good Pisarros, being particularly struck by one called 'The Côte des Bœufs at L’Hermitage', not to be confused with the picture of the same scene which lives in Paris. I learn this morning from http://www.camille-pissarro.org/ that he was a very prolific chap with whom I would like a better acquaintance. Makes Vermeer's output look a bit piddling. By volume that is.

Leaving the gallery was presented with the flier illustrated. I have yet to read the material properly, but we do appear to have yet another case where the suspect's face fitted, where there was a bit of circumstantial but not much in the way of proper evidence. With what there is tainted by the presence of a policeman subsequently put in prison himself. This is not the same as saying the suspect didn't do it, but unsatisfactory none the less. Blood stained knife in hand of suspect better than his fingerprints on dustbin bags which may or may not be associated with the getaway car. I shall give the material a proper read in due course.

Entertained on the way home by the sight of two chaps, presumably having taken strong drink, crossing the tracks at Earlsfield the quick way, being rather put out by the detour required by refurbishment works. Next to me was a rather proper and solemn chap explaining to his curious five year old daughter why this was very silly. At some length.

I close with a rather different sort of failure, the failure to be able to read. I read yestrerday in that entertaining little book from the Economist, the 'Pocket World in Figures 2011', that the rate if literacy in Bulgaria is 98.3%. Various other countries of the same sort attract a similar figure, while the UK is prudently silent on the point.

Two pieces of evidence against. First, I read recently in a learned government report that about 20% of the school population in England have special educational needs (SEN), of which around one third need more help than can be provided from within their schools' own resources and of which around one seventh (2.7%, 200,000 or more children) are children who might once have been a permutation of SEN called ESN. This suggests to me that quite a lot of children are not going to be very good at reading. Second, on May 18th 2008, I reported a figure of 10% for illiteracy, a figure which I remember checking at the time, although I do not seem to have left any record of the checking. Now England is a reasonably sophisticated place. Is is likely that Bulgaria does better, even making allowance for the communist educational heritage? So I think this particular number from the Economist is either twaddle or defined on an unhelpfully inclusive definition of literacy. Makes one nervous about the quality of other numbers provided.