I’ve finally found a point for St George’s Day

We (the English that is) share our patron saint’s day with the Catalans. On Sant Jordi’s day Barcelona fills up with bookstalls and flower sellers. The men give their women flowers and the women their men books. I lived in Barcelona a few years ago and found the whole thing charming but also a bit sexist. How typically Latin, I thought, that the men would receive something cerebral whereas the women would get something decorative. Recently though, I’ve revised my opinion. Far from being an example of old-fashioned chauvinism, the Catalans are actually indulging in some progressive social engineering.

A report by the Reading Agency commissioned for World Book Night states that almost 30 per cent of men have not read a book since leaving school. I can well believe this. My day job is in publishing where it is received opinion that men do not read fiction unless it’s Lee Child.