DCMS: MORE CULTURE, LESS MEDIA AND SPORT

A recent version of the famous Arabian Nights

Earlier this week, I wrote to the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Sajid Javid about the possibility of his department supporting a series of Massive Open Online Courses (Moocs) on the cultural heritage of the Muslim world. This follows an excellent mooc sponsored by the Danish Government and led by the University of Copenhagen on the subject of "Constitutional Struggles in the Muslim World" - https://www.coursera.org/course/muslimworld - around which there was much online discussion of cultural themes, including music and literature.

Now Sajid Javid's appointment has been met with some teeth-grinding amongst UK arts institutions because he appears to come to DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport) with little cultural background, having previously been a banker and subsequently, after his election as MP for Bromsgrove, Financial Secretary to the Treasury. As it happens, however, I can see a literary connection between these two roles and offer some recommended summer holiday reading to Mr Javid. "The Man Who Counted" - http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/count.pdf - is, according to its wikipedia entry, "a series of tales in the style of the Arabian Nights, but revolving around mathematical puzzles and curiosities. The book is ostensibly a translation by Brazilian scholar Breno de Alencar Bianco of an original manuscript by Malba Tahan, a (fictitious) thirteenth-century Persian scholar of the Islamic Empire"(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Counted)*

"The Man Who Counted" was recently recommended on the BBC Radio 4 statistical programme "More or Less" -  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qshd - in which presenter Tim Harford "explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life". However, with regard to the running of his new department, my advice to the Secretary of State is mathematically straightforward: "More Culture, Less Media and Sport", with the exception of equestrian show jumping and eventing which need more coverage on the BBC.

Postscript: On the subject of *Latin American-Middle Eastern intersectionality, a forthcoming Coursera Latin American Culture Mooc might provide a model for something similar on the Muslim world - https://www.coursera.org/course/latinamericanculture