There was a ghastly groundhog day moment when I was listening to the news yesterday about a team from the Arab League flying to New York to persuade the UN to amend the peace plans for Lebanon. At the end of the bulletin the programme presenter whispered (on air) to his colleague 'I think that was yesterday's news bulletin'. And so it was. But I hadn't noticed (and nor presumably had the BBC technicians). A sad commentary on the Middle East situation. 

A happier day for England cricket where a brilliant test match ended in an England victory. The really good news was that the two heroes of the final day were Mudhsuden Singh Panesar (Monty) and Sajid Iqbal Mahmood (Saj) whose names tell a story. British Asians are becoming mainstream sports stars which will further enhance respect for the first and second-generation immigrants who have done so much for Britain.

A publishing statistic - worldwide sales of textbooks increased 8% year on year according to a recent study from EPS. This is not so surprising. Although mature markets such as the UK have constrained spending on school materials many developing countries have recognised the importance of education as a necessary forerunner of economic and social development (thank God) and have increased budgets for textbooks.

The more telling statistic is that online educational sales increased 18%. In parallel I saw that in Australia teachers are being encouraged to retire earlier in order to bring forward a new cohort of younger teachers more sympathetic to electronic learning systems. In the USA every college course is supplemented with or indeed driven by electronic materials for learning, testing and administration.

The electronic revolution in educational publishing has been slower to arrive than in, say, scientific or legal publishing but it's coming and it's coming fast.