Reading

Writing and reading amaze me. We've created a system of squiggles that, if you code and de-code them right, mean someone can talk to you and give you ideas or make you laugh or make you cry even if they are on the other side of the world. Or dead. They can keep you company when you are alone, explain things that confuse you, make you see things you'll never see for real.

I watch people reading, on the bus, in shops, during work breaks... and the skill and speed of interpreting those marks awes me. When you try reading a script you don't know (Arabic or Japanese, say, for most of us here) you start to grasp the astonishing thing we've all learnt so young.

I'm interested that for a long, long time the potency of reading was recognised, and people who were needed to accept, do and stick at tedious, dangerous labour were excluded from the system in case they developed ambitions.

And then, just about the time that almost everyone learnt to do it, those in charge started complaining that people weren't doing it to a high enough standard.