WASHED AND READY TO EAT

I've been building up a fascinating picture of the penal system across Europe this week, thanks to a couple of stories reported in the press. In the Netherlands, prisoners are being offered support from psychics who are able to put them in touch with dead relatives. One such practitioner, clairvoyant Paul van Bree, not only reassures the lags with confirmation of the afterlife, but also helps the authorities to gain an insight into the criminal mind and determine the nature of the rehabilitation programme. It's not made clear whether van Bree is capable of seeing - Minority Report style - future offences that might be committed by the inmates. He describes himself as a 'paragnost' rather than a precog. If this scheme were introduced in British prisons, the psychics could do all kinds of helpful stuff. Like help the inmates predict the schedule for Sky One or anticipate the next PS3 games to arrive at the jail. In reality, the soothsayers are more likely to be in dema...

I went the other night to a workshop at the mini-Ws' school which was designed to inform parents about the modern techniques used in teaching maths. Imagine my horror when it became clear it was a practical session. Kids were waiting in various classrooms with games and exercises related to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I was feeling particularly tired that evening and hoped to ease myself in with a bit of simple adding up, but was plunged straight into long division. Thankfully one of the mums accompanying me on the tour did the heavy lifting. I threw dice for her to establish randomly the sums that she was due to divide. She seemed to get the hang of the technique and I was thankfully never asked to have a go myself. I was awarded a star by the child in charge of the table, presumably for my assured shaking of the dice. In the substraction room, I encountered a lady who'd come along from the local teacher training college, who was very enthusiastic abou...