10 July

One of the most difficult things to get for your kids in Australia is good training in foreign languages. I would swap 90% of what kids are taught at school for good training in other languages. Up to 4 or 5 languages even. Research shows learning other languages is THE most powerful learning any child can do. Also in a time when there's so much distrust of foreigners, it's amazing what learning and speaking other languages can do for relations between cultures. Instead we bang on and on about bloody English, when a third or more of our own population couldn't pass the English test we give to migrants. Le Carre has also a done a service against the idiots who post stuff online about how apparently harsh and militaristic the German language is. It only is if you choose to speak it like a bad Hollywood actor in a war film.