As it's Christmas I am on a mission to find heart-warming, it's-a-wonderful-life stories, starting with this one from today's Guardian, about a man who has invented spectacles which don't need an optician to adjust them. He now plans to distribute a billion pairs, at a dollar apiece, to people in the developing world, which will boost literacy, boost employment... He tells the story of a tailor in Ghana whose eyesight had deteriorated so by the age of 35 that he was forced to retire; with these glasses, he can now work again. (And please note, dear readers - who funded this pilot? Yes, the British Government).
Of course, a billion dollars isn't that easy to find. But it occurs to me - if we had a scheme whereby everyone in the developed world paid an (optional) extra dollar whenever they went to the opticians, which went into the '2020' fund - it would help, wouldn't it?
Anyway, Josh Silver is his name, he's a hero, give him a knighthood. (And Blogger, don't you dare be cynical about this. Don't. You. Dare.)
