A French banker I know is currently applying for British citizenship. Despite living and working in London for the past decade, one of the things he had to prove was that he can speak English.

So off he trotted to Hammersmith to take a £180 language test last year. Before the test, he was asked to prepare a topic to talk about with the examiner and rather amusingly, he did not pick football or his love of food, he chose to talk about the European Central Bank. Two minutes into the test, the examiner pretty much gave up any pretense of testing his use of verbs and they talked about life in London.