I asked him why we were so bad at maths. He said there were a lot of reasons, including the fact that maths and sciences did not get the same respect they got in other countries-it is OK here to say I'm no good at maths ' in a way that it is not in most other parts of the world. He gave other reasone including: a shortage of good teachers. I asked him whether anything was being done about it. Well, just last year a new charity was launched dedicated to improving numeracy standards in the UK : The National Numeracy organization. It is working to brung the problem to the attention of the public. He told me I should google it!'