James Bond, Maths Madness

 It's James Bond's birthday today. Not Ian Fleming's odious creation, but the blameless ornithologist (born 1900) who wrote the definitive Birds of the West Indies. His name was purloined by Fleming (who had Birds of the West Indies on his bookshelves at his Jamaican home) because the author thought it sounded suitably 'ordinary' and masculine for his spy hero. Fleming seems not to have bothered to tell the ornithologist, but he did let Bond's wife know. The real Jame Bond only became aware of his fictional namesake when 007 began to make a splash, and he thought the whole thing was rather a good joke. When he and his wife visited Fleming unexpectedly in 1964, they all got on famously, and the author signed a  copy of You Only Live Twice (first edition) for 'the real James Bond'. It sold at auction in 2008 for $84,000. At their meeting, the following exchange took place – 
BOND: 'I don't read your books. My wife reads them all, but I never do.'
FLEMING: 'I don't blame you.'
Quite.

Also today, we were given a tantalising glimpse of Rishi Sunak's vision for Britain – compulsory maths lessons for all up to the age of 18. One hardly knows what to say [that never stops you – Ed.]. In view of the chronic shortage of teachers, especially maths teachers (who even in my day were not, shall we say, the cream of the profession), this is unlikely ever to be implemented. But leaving that aside, Sunak and co seem not to realise that there are people – myself included –  for whom maths, beyond a certain basic level, is always going to be an impenetrable mystery, however many lessons have to be endured*. I scraped an O-level, but already much of what was on the syllabus was quite incomprehensible to me. Forcing me to endure any more lessons would have been a total waste of everybody's time and energy. Sunak could more usefully concern himself with the low levels of basic numeracy and literacy apparent much farther back in the system. Once these have been improved, the curriculum can be stripped back to essentials – literature, history, music, art and philosophy, all properly taught (with sciences available for those who want them). This will never happen.

* My father was one who believed that anyone could be taught to understand maths, if it was expressed clearly enough. In particular he was convinced that he could teach anyone the differential calculus in ten minutes. Rashly he tried this on my brother and me. Met with our blank (unfeigned) incomprehension, he eventually retired from the field.