what I have learned today.

[Cudzoziemiec]

And Polish for tea is herbata, which is just herba ta, the herb tea, using Latin for herb cos originally it was sold in pharmacies. Or apothecaries even.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Today I learned that Post Office uniform includes Royal Mail branded shoes. Pretty comfortable, apparently; at least for the postie I know.

[Aunt Maud]

My mums' postie said he gets paid by the minute.

[Cudzoziemiec]

That there are almost twice as many public libraries in relation to population in the Czech Republic as in France and Germany has barely a tenth as many (592, 250 and 62 per million respectively) but that 28% of Czechs "have never read a book" compared to 27% in France and 21% in Germany (and only 9% in Sweden), according to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.

[Beardy]

28% of Czechs "have never read a book" compared to 27% in France and 21% in Germany (and only 9% in Sweden),

Never read a book? How does that work then. I'm having serious problems with this statement. Really.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yeah, that's why I put it in quotes. I guess it probably means have never borrowed a book from a public library.

[Tim Hall]

Simon in Claire in the Community is played by Andrew Wincott, a close friend of who also plays Adam Macy in The Archers.

[Nutbeem]

28% of Czechs "have never read a book" compared to 27% in France and 21% in Germany (and only 9% in Sweden),

Never read a book? How does that work then. I'm having serious problems with this statement. Really.

I could easily belive those figures and suspect the UK would be similar. The average reading age in the UK is 9 years old and 10% of the adult population have a reading age below 10 years old.

As most people will have done some sort of book reading in the school years I think the more accurate definition would be that these 21-28% of people have never voluntarily picked up a book (fiction or non-fiction) and read it from cover to cover for the sake reading.

The growth of Television and the internet will probably only serve to increase this figure.

As an aside often when someone mentions a film they have watched I will ask if they've read the book and the answer is invariably no. I find this really sad as the book will nearly always take the story to a whole new level that film can never achieve.

[Kim]

As an aside often when someone mentions a film they have watched I will ask if they've read the book and the answer is invariably no.

For most people watching a film is an order of magnitude less of a time commitment than reading a book.  It's much easier to see a lot more of them.  And some films are actually good (and many of them aren't based on books).

Plus watching films is often a social activity, while reading books usually isn't.  This tends to lead to different priorities.

I find this really sad as the book will nearly always take the story to a whole new level that film can never achieve.

That's why seeing the film first is the good way round.  Less disappointing that way.

It's also, for some people, a gateway to reading.  If you enjoy a film that was based on a book, chances are high that you'll get even more out of the original novel, or that you'll enjoy other works by the same author.  That can be important if you find reading difficult (or just plain slow).  My brother was a very reluctant reader (I suspect he's mildly dyslexic), until after watching The Eagle Has Landed (he was a WW2 buff at a formative age) my mum pointed out that there were a several of Jack Higgins books on one of the shelves upstairs.  I'm sure Harry Potter has done similar for the current generation of reluctant readers.


I think we're still some way away from the Internet having a negative effect on literacy (indeed, I can think of a couple of adults I know for whom it's had an extremely positive effect).  While video proliferates, it's still fundamentally a text-based medium.  I'll also suggest that there's a lot more to reading than novels.  For a long time I didn't have the attention span for reading fiction, but I would spend many hours a day reading everything from realtime chat, through random bollocks on newsgroups, intelligent blog posts about all manner of subjects, textbooks, technical references, scientific papers and random wiksand.  It's all good.

[Beardy]

I have to say that that one of my proudest parental achievements is my children's love of books and theatre.

They've always had free access to books and weekly trips to the library. A trip into town nearly always included a visit to a book shop and it is an impossibility for me to enter a bookshop and not make a purchase. With three children and the a wife in tow that always meant 4 or 5 books.

Indeed on a recent trip to Stratford upon Avon to buy my eldest a wedding dress (££££) we still found time to pop into a book shop and I ended up buying both the girls a copy of Dust (the new Philip Pulman) and their 23 and 29! The boy wasn't there but didn't miss though as less recent trip into THAT LONDON to meet him and is partner resulted in a bookshop visit and the purchase of books for both of them. They both have firsts in English Literature so are officially well read and STILL love reading.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I very rarely buy new books. That's what libraries and charity bookshops are for. But there are some stories which are so bound up with an iconic film it's hard to imagine reading the book. For instance, the Wizard of Oz.

Anyway, here's a new Thing I Have Learned: that the opium poppy is a vegetable. Its leaves were eaten as a salad and its oil highly valued for cooking in 19th century China (and presumably elsewhere and maybe still). Also that 19th c. Chinese used "horse racer" as a term of abuse to Westerners, which puts jibes about eating dogs into context.

[numbnuts]

No matter how many times you help a person, one upset they will stab you in the back.

[ian]

No matter how many times you help a person, one upset they will stab you in the back.

Trust me, it's even worse with unicorns.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Back to the books and literacy for a second, Bloom & Curll is a s/h bookshop in Bristol which I happened to walk past today on my way back from somewhere less interesting. Outside the window they had a tray of books not good enough to sell, not bad enough to pulp; free, please take. And one caught my eye. I'll quote the back cover:

What is literacy? And why do we value it? Until two centuries ago, to be literate meant being rich enough to have leisure to learn to read and to acquire books. This traditional view of literacy has been changed not only by universal and compulsory school attendance – where reading and writing are still regarded as vital skills – but by the developments in micro technology which meant that children today are more familiar with the workings of the computer than the construction of the sentence.

So perhaps that's something I could learn today if I could be bothered to read the book!

[arabella]

Indeed.  And before printing most people rarely saw a book (I assume church bibles might have been the exception).
Reading used to be an intellectual activity rather than a pass-time.

[Kim]

I assume that was either written in the 80s, or the author is a pillock.  Possibly both.

Kids today are up to their necks in grammar, and - with the usual exceptions - are about as familiar with the workings of the microcomputer as our generation was with the workings of the television.  Indeed, I'd suggest a fairly high level of literacy (as well as some knowledge of mathematics) is a prerequisite for understanding either.

The point about literacy being an indicator of privilege is still bang on, of course.  Technological progress means that significant wealth is no longer required to access books, and people have more leisure time, but reading to your children remains a middle class value.

Perhaps the internet will develop in such a way that more people are able to access knowledge without requiring high levels of literacy.  On balance, I think that's a good thing.  Maybe the revolution of online video for sign language users is a model of things to come.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I assume that was either written in the 80s, or the author is a pillock.  Possibly both.

Copyright date is 1991. I've only read the back cover so can't comment... But I expect "the workings of the computer" is as likely to mean how to use one as how one works.

[Tod28]

The average reading age in the UK is 9 years old and 10% of the adult population have a reading age below 10 years old.

Whilst the thread is currently debating literacy levels, this is not numerate!

Either statement could well be true but not both at the same time!

[Basil]

The average reading age in the UK is 9 years old and 10% of the adult population have a reading age below 10 years old.

Whilst the thread is currently debating literacy levels, this is not numerate!

Either statement could well be true but not both at the same time!

What percentage of the UK population is aged 0 - 9?

[ian]

I think you need to factor in the skew towards the lower end caused by UKIP voters.

[ElyDave]

Whenever I am let off the leash on a family trip to Cambridge, or have some spare left over cash in foreign, I tend to head for a bookshop, either second hand or new. As a consequence I have a bookshelf full of stuff that is interesting but I'm yet to read.  Ray Mears is currently exercising my second hand searches having watched him on TV for years.

As for film adaptations of books, only two good ones spring to mind, Day of the Jackal, and The Hunt For Red October

[rogerzilla]

That dorky game recycling retailer CEX is pronounced 'sex".  Ironic, since none of its customers will know much about that.

[Kim]

I've always pronounced it "computer exchange".  Been a while since I was a PSO scrounging for second-hand SIMMs, though.

[rafletcher]

As for film adaptations of books, only two good ones spring to mind, Day of the Jackal, and The Hunt For Red October

Perhaps worthy of a thread of its own... 

I’d suggest Catch 22 and The taking of Pelham 123. And maybe From here to Eternity.

[Pickled Onion]

Back on the book thing, apparently 20% of people cannot name a single author. It sounds like a made-up statistic, but it was covered on More Or Less last week and the survey was sound.