However you cut it, education in the UK, is woeful. Really came home how bad this lunchtime, talking about language teaching with a Dutch colleague. My English is reasonable (native speaker, so there are certain expectations); French, I can handle; German, ok; Spanish not too bad. Competent enough in all of them - just - to order meals etc.

They, on the other hand, speak four languages fluently - their English is enviable, written and spoken. Learnt them all as part of the state curriculum, which additionally involved them reading 30 books in each of the four languages. Not soppy romances or kids primers either, but heavyweights like Camus, Sartre etc. I thought I was bold and new wave reading them in translation in my late teens, early twenties...but as a school kid and in the original?

I feel like a street urchin...well, I did, I have read two books in the original: Grimm's Fairy Tale and Le Petit Prince, some struggle though.

Baccalaureate system needed here. I can think of only one other developed country which has as primitive an educational system as ours. Please step forward, Uncle Sam.