Teenagers may not read the metaphysical poets any more, but they do know about disk drives, text-messaging and SD ram But the same technology has also cruelly de-skilled us. When I was a boy, taking a successful photograph required a working knowledge of optics, chemistry, the weather, mental arithmetic and artistic judgement Digital does it for you. Similarly, owning a car once presumed a useful acquaintance with the theory and practice of the Otto Cycle, the mechanics of Ackermann steering, Hooke’s joints and Dr Porsche’s patents for the synchromesh gearbox. Now you open the bonnet, that’s if you ever do, and the only thing you can understand is where to insert the electronic diagnostic probe.God knows I’m no advocate of cozy complacency or provincial antiquarianism – the tides of taste can leave Milton and Dickens behind as far as I’m concerned, provided only they wash up something superior – but you do pause for thought when you see what Moshe Menuhin told the now defunct New York Sun about his little boy Yehudi’s schedule “Today he is reading Les Misérables. He has read all of Moliÿre’s comedies and a great variety of French authors in the original. He also likes to read history and has just finished HG Wells’s Outline.” At the same time, Menuhin’s six-year-old sister was cheerfully reading Plutarch.I suppose you might concede that when a popular DJ uses an expression like Zeitgeist on Capital Radio it is a sign of the progress made in a century of popular education Yes, but only up to a point. Chris Tarrant approached the word as you would a turd on the end of a stick and pronounced it more inaccurately than you would have thought possible for a simple bi-syllable.

Then, come to think of it, maybe I got the DJ’s identity wrong. The problem with the Culture of Ignorance is that so many people on the radio sound like Chris Tarrant.Lamenting the Culture of Ignorance has its perils, however. Describing the achievements of Victorian education, Macaulay rather grandly wrote: “Every schoolboy knows… who strangled Atahualpa” and hilariously spelled the name of the Inca ruler incorrectly. You have to admit that it is easier to be Clarkson, a man who has helped confirm a damaging association in the popular imagination between being a buffoon and being very successful.

Jeremy may prove that you don’t go bust underestimating the public’s taste and intelligence But there’s an exception to this rule. It’s in Greenwich.* Stephen Bayley’s ‘General Knowledge’ is published by Booth-Clibborn Editions (£19.95). Kirsty MacColl, one of the most gifted British singer-songwriters, was killed in a boating accident yesterday, stunning musicians and music fans. Kirsty MacColl, one of the most gifted British singer-songwriters, was killed in a boating accident yesterday, stunning musicians and music fans.
The manner of her death was particularly shocking.

She was killed on holiday in Mexico after being hit by a speedboat while she was swimming.The singer was with her two sons at the time They are said to be unhurt. According to family friends, the diving holiday had been organised by Ms MacColl to comfort them after the death of a friend of one of the sons.Their father, Ms MacColl’s former husband Steve Lillywhite, a music producer, was on his way to Mexico last night.Ms MacColl, 41, was not a household name; but her cleverly crafted songs, her forays into world music, particularly the rhythms of Cuba and Brazil, and her lyrics that offered a funny and penetrating view on contemporary life, had built up a large and loyal following.Although she made little or no effort to be fashionable and tended to avoid media exposure, she had long since earned the praise of her peers. U2’s Bono once described her as “the Noel Coward of her generation”. Johnny Marr, formerly of the Smiths, had likened her songs to “the wit of Ray Davies and the harmonic invention of the Beach Boys”.Her fans were particularly delighted by her latest album, Tropical Brainstorm, a mixture of Latin rhythms and caustic commentaries on the sex war. Critics thought it the best of the seven albums in her 21-year career.Ms MacColl, the daughter of the folk singer Ewan MacColl, made her name in 1981 with the typically quirky “There’s A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop (Swears He’s Elvis)”. She later had an international hit singing with the Pogues on their 1987 song, “Fairytale of New York”. It was voted the fourth most popular Christmas single of all time in a recent poll.For the last few years she had travelled extensively in Cuba and Brazil, drawing inspiration from Latin music.

She said in an interview a few months ago: “It was like a sudden liberation of my brain. I’d spent so long being unhappy in a very British way, and suddenly there was … all this new stuff.”Johnnie Walker, a BBC radio presenter and a friend of Ms MacColl, said last night: “She was one of the true, real characters of popular music and although there has been pressure on women to conform in the music business, she was always herself and said ‘I am what I am’.”The first part of an eight-part series the singer made for BBC Radio 2, Kirsty MacColl’s Cuba, was due to be broadcast tonight. But the BBC said it would be postponing the show until the matter had been discussed with her family.The Independent’s travel editor, Simon Calder, who takes part in the programme, said: “This is an appalling tragedy. She was the best kind of exponent of the Cuban music to the West.