Our lecturers didn’t show a picture of Muhammad but they all still lost their jobs anyway. The story of austerity and how it’s destroying higher education is being hidden behind these manufactured scandals.

Klara has a reading competition at her school. Kids read books from a list and do quizzes on them. Each book is worth between 0.5 and 3 points depending on the length and complexity. The class that reveives 250 points total gets an ice-cream party.

Yesterday I went to the library and brought 11 books for Klara. I left them in her room but this morning I found the whole pile in my study.

“You don’t want to read them?” I asked. “Should I look for different ones?”

“No,” she said. “I already read them. “I’m ready for the quiz.”

We did the quizzes, and she scored 100%.

I’m off to the library for more books. The challenge is supposed to last until June but I have a feeling she’ll earn ice-cream parties for all classrooms well before that.

I thought no text could be more superficial, cliched, and predictable than an interview with Meghan Markle.

Nobody, I thought, could be as smug in their absolute ignorance than Meghan.

And then I started reading The Poisonwood Bible.