SO now Tesco has to teach its staff the three Rs. The supermarket giant is so alarmed at low levels of literacy that they have carried out a £100,000 pilot project teaching people basic skills. Once the recruits - all currently unemployed - complete the course, they're guaranteed a job in a Tesco store.

"They are not thick or stupid," said a Tesco spokesman. "They have just not been given the right education in the first place." Desperate, isn't it?

Tesco is already planning more schemes at a cost of £1m. Supermarkets already control what we eat and drink, what growers grow. They have banks, post offices, pharmacies and creches under their roofs. And now they're running schools as well.

But before you stop complaining that schools don't teach people anything any more, hang on a bit. The people Tesco is talking about are not just school leavers _ there are people in their twenties, thirties and forties here, who've missed out along the line.

So that means right back in the 1960s schools weren't doing their job properly. Come to that, a friend of mine who did National Service in the late 1950s spent most of his spare time writing letters for fellow recruits who couldn't read or write. So 50 years ago education wasn't all it was cracked up to be either.

Maybe it never has been.

If we go back to Tom Brown's schooldays all they learnt was Latin, Greek and chunks of the Bible. Mind-stretching, no doubt, but not much use for most of us. Education is changing. Instead of a lot about a little, children now learn a little about a lot. Which do you think is better?

And maybe all these tests and league tables and inspections might eventually work in lifting standards.

If not, you can always apply for a place at the University of Tesco - where at least now you know that the assistants will be able to read, write and add up.

Everybody needs good neighbours...

THE waters rose at the front of the house... the waters rose at the back... they poured into our neighbours' houses. Sewage spewed up our garden path. I rescued the insurance forms from the study and waited for the inevitable.

We live at the bottom of a mile-long hill. Water was gathering down the top, roaring down the hill, rushing off the fields, pushing up manhole covers until it got down to our green, where there was nowhere else for it to go.

Some neighbours had only just got their houses straight and decorated again after the floods three months ago. Heartbreaking. But, mad though it sounds, there was a great atmosphere round our green. Neighbours who normally barely speak to each other were in and out of houses heaving furniture out of the way. My strapping sons were in much demand as piano shifters. (Possible future career there?) People were swapping wellies and sandbags and make-shift flood diverters. Others went round with mugs of tea for the lads from Reeth Fire Brigade, who were doing a grand job.

And when the floods threatened again on Monday, the firemen were back and a couple of smashing lads from Richmond Council were there in half an hour with a load of sandbags.

There are undoubtedly some preventable reasons why the floods occurred, and some serious problems to be tackled. But when it was actually happening, it was reassuring to see that everything that could be done was being done, and usually incredibly cheerfully.

And anyway, I've always wanted a swimming pool in the back garden, though perhaps not in the dining room.