Wednesday 12 August 2009

The pilot scheme



(Photographed this afternoon in Central London.)

Figures today show that unemployment is up to 2.4 million, the highest since 1995. And book sales are down and, they say, young people don’t read. SORT IT OUT: pay people to read. In public. Role models. Behind temporary barriers, so they’re not jostled or interrupted. Local booksellers and publishers can advertise on the barriers. Result: unemployment down, book sales up, and the whole country becomes more literate, imaginative and civilised.

3 comments:

Ms Baroque said...

Hi Charles, I love this! VERY good. I have seen these young people reading, myself.

I should say hello to you anyway, Christopher R has plied me with some of your books - they're wonderful. (Including the Song of Lunch which you can rest happy knowing you published that, it's a service to humanity.)

charles said...

Greetings, MsB. CR is a fine plier of books. I've been relying on BiH for some time for news from the east.

Ms Baroque said...

Oh have you?? Very glad to hear it!

(Oddly, the word recognition thingy says "mardle," which doesn't seem to fit very well with what we're saying... the air is quite nice and bracing over here, a delightfully aromatic blend of Turkish Cypriot food, coffee and pollution.)