the road to learning useful math
mistertim: I'm in a similar situation - My last academic exposure to maths was at GCSE level  (age 16 for non-UK people), and I've recently attempted to rectify that. I've just begun a degree in mathematics through http://www.open.ac.uk - The first module has been useful for me but maybe less so if you've done an A-level, but it looks like it progresses onto some useful stuff. I can also highly recommend 'Concrete Mathematics' - It's been really useful for filling in some context around the (first module) OU course - typically we're taught practical applications of mathematics that skip over the proofs and derivations - and CM is great at filling in some of the rigour that the OU misses out.Also, you might want to check out the wikibooks High School Mathematics Extensions textbook: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/High_School_Mathematics_Extensi... - there's a whole lot of rigarous but accessible introductions to some pertinent mathematical concepts. Marcus du Sautoy's 'The Music of the Primes' is also great as a bit of light reading to give you a sense of the history (and some very basic mathematical concepts) of the subject.Cheers,Tim