I SEE the 11 & 12 times tables (the two hardest) are being dropped from the primary school curriculum. That's when chanting tables is brought back to all schools of course.

It's been decided to stop at 10s because we're now decimal, but it wouldn't hurt to tax the brain a bit further, now would it?

I hope this decision hasn't been taken because education secretary David Blunkett took 14 seconds to work out 12 x 9 when asked last week. Poor show.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.