import sqlite3
import timeit

conn = sqlite3.connect(':memory:')
cur = conn.cursor()

cur.execute('create table test ( t text, f text )')
cur.execute('create index test_index on test ( t)')
bs=' '*10000
for i in range(10000):
    cur.execute("insert into test values (?, ?)" , (str(i),bs))

conn.commit()

def ver_a():
    cur.execute('select count(*) from test where t glob ?', ('1*',))
def ver_b():
    cur.execute("select count(*) from test where t glob '1*'")

print timeit.timeit('ver_a()', 'from __main__ import ver_a', number=100)
print timeit.timeit('ver_b()', 'from __main__ import ver_b', number=100)