The reading obvious

ACCORDING to a major new study by the Australian National University, growing up in a house filled with books has a large effect on literacy later in life.

Obvious, you might think. Bears and woods. Popes and Catholics. But the effects are so striking that school leavers who grew up with books had similar literary, numerate and technology skills to university graduates who did not. Couldn’t someone point this out to schools across the land? Instead of filling children’s heads with alarming views about transgender issues and telling them how evil the Empire was, couldn’t they suggest something that might actually help the younger generation? Like read a few good books? HUNGARY has just banned gender studies at university on the grounds that it is an ideology, not a science.

Should we be concerned? The prestigious Central European University, based in Budapest, is, saying that it is a “major infringement on academic freedom and university autonomy”. I’m not so sure. Given the quite ludicrous subjects you can now study at many universities it looks more like a return to common sense. YOU gotta laugh: the Yorks stage a huge “royal” wedding for Eugenie and then about five seconds later Harry and Meghan upstage them by announcing the pregnancy. With the best will in the world the “blood princesses” will never, ever be able to compete with William and Harry and their non-blood princess wives. Best to accept it now.