The line between myth and real has always been blurry. Curse those postmodern ancients and their Homeric fantasies! (they were probably enemies of the CONSTITUTION SOLON'S LAWS to boot)

Regards, C

Triumph, why shouldn't the UK have a Scottish PM?

The Scots barely speak English and they are always more liberal than the English.

A B-list channel for old reruns of sitcoms and soaps runs a survey, no methodology described (was it a phone-in poll?), then it gets reported as serious news by a French news service and Americans jump all over it.

Indeed and if you check out the uktv web site, the churchill figure is based on the "nation's under 20s" but neglects to tell us the age breakdown of these 'under 20s'.

Are they asking 10 year olds?

Regards, C

Even Churchill, by any account a key figure of the 20th century made a contribution to the world that was minor. As long as the person knows generally how WW2 went does it matter if they know specifically what role was played by Churchill, Guerring, Hirohito, MacArthur, and so on?

So long as they aren't trying to write definitively on the topic it just doesn't really matter. Ask yourself how much you know about Tycho Brahe, Rasputin, or Sei Shonagon.

The world has become a much more complicated place, and by that I mean the sum of human knowledge has doubled and redoubled so many times that not only can no one person be at the forefront of half a dozen sciences, as say Da Vinci was, but it's nearly impossible to be at the forefront of even a good portion of *one* science or field of study. Far more likely you will be, if reasonably talented, a decent expert on a field so tiny as to be completely unknown by the vast majority of human beings.

Consequently I find these kind of gotcha trivia quizes to be of limited usefulness. What does it mean if a person doesn't know squat about Churchill but can derive Bernoulli's principle?

A B-list channel for old reruns of sitcoms and soaps runs a survey, no methodology described (was it a phone-in poll?), then it gets reported as serious news by a French news service and Americans jump all over it.

Is it just me, or have y'all been waiting for an opportunity to jump all over us Brits for our arrogant notion that we know more history than anyone else? Fair enough, we probably deserve some jumping-on. But this is thin justification.

Regards, C

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth. And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up.

Further reinforcing the stupidity of the British people, nearly 78% of the British public believe in climate change, and 71% feel that the Iraqi invasion was unjustified.

Its no wonder they have a haggis-eating, Scottish prime minister.

I think education has really gotten slack in teaching history and lit. and connecting the two together.