I am not a person who generally feels well-informed; for a year I called our Prime Minister Julia Jillard. So I’ve been reading a series of remedial primers, the Oxford Very Short Introductions. These offer “stimulating ways in to new topics”, note the precisiony Oxford charm in the division of the totally acceptable “into”.

I’ve been feeling that I squandered my best learning opportunity some years in to the past. When I finished school I enrolled in a freeform arts degree, but quickly dropped most subjects when I realised I liked the writing ones. In keeping with the spirit of the ‘learning opportunity’, the Oxford series is my version of the Grand Tour, ‘the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means’. My version is less sexy but also costs far less. Installments might be $11 if you buy second-hand, which works out to maybe ten cents a page.