this article alone provides very clear answer to the most misunderstood part of the issue….

Also I was an assiduous reader, in the 1960s, of a friendly Readers Digest format magazine called Sputnik which showed the delights offered by the ‘cultural palaces’ in the USSR (any other Sputnik readers out there ?). Maybe Boris was more into exercise than culture.

What do you mean “pick the languages children learn” - are you suggesting the kids could pick any lanaguage and be offered some online course? Otherwise, if we’re going to train teachers we will have to decide what languages we want kids to learn. I think we’re at the very bottom of the OECD table as far as kids learning second languages.

you really need to go to some of these countries. When I was working in Beijing some years ago now, you could go to a whole expensive museum showing paintings of great Chinese soldiers fighting the wicked enemy (you probably still can). There’s a lot of good things you could think of about Chinese culture, but this great waste of money isn’t one of them. I’m not saying we should have no funding for the Arts, but great thought needs to be given to it, and this doesn’t appear to occur too often. If you look at things like the money dished out to Australian film makers and what we get from it, for instance (another feel good movie about white hard luck man or other such culture stereotype from the same old club of dull directors), I’m not optimistic. In addition, if the money wasn’t dished out, one might imagine that we might actually get films people want to watch.
Also the idea that we should pick languages children learn is crazy. When I went to high school, I learnt that very useful language German (in Year 10), and didn’t even learn anything useful with it like grammar (nein, nicht ein bissen). Oddly enough, I’m one of the comparitively small number of people in Australia that actually meaningfully uses a European language now and then (which I learnt from a teach yourself book), but I don’t see why we should have the government picking them for schools.

The ‘nature of humankind’ (got that from F.Rottles) is that we are fallen and weak Boris, and that’s why bad tends to drive out good (the comrades are probably now watching pornographic DVDs on their plasma screens). So we have to keep making an effort to lift our standards - with Classic FM for example.

Instead of restricting Classic FM to subscribers (how would I listen in the car?) we should have every school pupil listening to it - maybe 20 minutes in between their Japanese and Hindi classes.

Boris think of the Sydney Opera House, and then of the Perth Concert Hall - the difference is what art does. Do people in Sydney regret having paid a fortune for their Opera House? Should we not have a National Gallery because most Australians will never see it? (what a genius Gough was to buy Blue Poles). No, you have to keep adding beauty and inspiration, not tear it away. You’re in Australia now Boris - breathe freely, expand your horizons, enjoy the finer things of life the community provides …. what’s a few dollars for the arts anyway.