Unlike, presumably, the AQA and those who have made the decision to circumvent our children’s education, I have actually lived in a country – a very large and populous country – where more than two generations have been brought up in utter ignorance of their history, their place in the world, or any sense of the aesthetic. They live their entire lives unmindfull of the fact that beauty exists as anything other than an artificial and economic imperative. As a result of having shriven from their environment all that is not logical, practical and dependant for its value upon re-sale worth, their country has become a barren, featureless landscape; their cities the most polluted concrete units in all the world; their children unable to project interest beyond the sealed barrier of Self. Artsy-fa...