I DISTINCTLY remember having a thirst for knowledge when I was growing up.

I would regularly browse newspapers from an early age and always had my head in an atlas or encyclopaedia looking for a snippet of information that somehow might lodge itself in my brain.

Forty years on, I may be entirely hopeless when it comes to domestic chores, DIY and any practical issues that demand my attention, but I certainly know the capital of Peru, the administrative headquarters of most English counties and that Chester Carlson invented the photocopier.

Clearly such fripperies as geography appear to attract a stern Whatever!' from a generation that doesn't appear to care too much about the whereabouts of the highest mountain in the world or the name of its longest river.

Granted, general knowledge appears to have lost its place in the pantheon of life's necessities to building up your Facebook profile or watching YouTube, but are we really growing a society that looks set to do away with pub quizzes forever?

I appreciate that much of the information locked in my ever-wilting brain is completely useless, unless you think the names of all Manchester United's 1968 European Cup-winning team or the actors who played The Magnificent Seven are going to get me out of any nasty intellectual scrape.

But it's still sad that the things that seemed so important to me have little relevance with those who have followed.

I even passed on my thirst for knowledge to my daughter and doubtless she could tell you the capital of Peru in a millisecond.

But ask her where her wages went in the past month and she wouldn't have a clue...