After a week of testing, nagging and moaning (and with the use of out and out bribery) boy #1 seems to have cracked his times tables. Why don't they just bloody make them learn them by rote in school (would have saved us the price of the bribe!).
I learnt my tables by rote and it was very effective, it wouldnt hurt to put this back into the curriculum, it may not be effective to all but I would imagine the vast majority would retain the information.
I learnt the tables by chanting. I learnt how to work it out by forming patterns (so for 8 x table it goes down in twos' 8. 16, 24 32,40 etc)... If a child can't understand what it is learning that chanting an answer out is hardly helpful.