Life-long learning, at 96

I've studied both with "standard age" undergraduate and post-graduate students and with "mature-age" ones, and know which group as a whole I prefer to work with. One of the wonderful things about our current age is the push towards life-long learning.

Perhaps the most dedicated student I've ever known was a woman of 60-odd. She'd left school at 11 (!) because her mother needed help with the younger kids, but she read all of her own kids' university textbooks with more enthusiasm than they did and, when they'd all finished, she was finally persuaded to try herself. She was lacking in confidence, but absolutely dedicated and very quick to grasp new concepts.

So I enjoyed the story in today's Guardian about the 96-year-old master's student. (It's his second masters - he thinks a PhD is a bit much to take on.)

Also in today's Guardian, a piece by George Monbiot on why you shouldn't eat Brazilian beef - it is eating the Amazon.

And in the Independent, the man who made himself famous, in the Andy Warhol sense, with an advert on eBay.

Completing the round-up, in The Times Libby Purves writes about the wonderful founder of the Kids Company.