Just seen this:
Languages to be made de rigueur in schools again - Britain - Times Online
I think the 1997 decision was incredibly short-sighted. I was reading somewhere the other day that within 20 years [I'm not sure of the figure - maybe a lot less] English would be overtaken as the predominant language used on the www (by Chinese). England could afford to be insular about learning languages once (when the sun never set on the British Empire). But in the 21st century it's madness.
b