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The Dumb Britain Thread On Digital Spy
Headancer
Posts: 463 Forum Member
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With more than a nod to a certain satirical magazine, I wondered if anybody is interested in mantaining a more comprehensive list on DS of "Dumb Britain".......
We could perhaps include a contestants thought logic as to how on earth they came up with their answer. Usually their dim conclusions generally add to the overall spectacular mood of total and abject dimness.....
Two gems appeared as ever, on last nights "In it to win it", a programme which never fails to provide a rich vein to tap into on a saturday night, (before its followed by the abject misery of casualty) !
I don't regard myself as interllectual or particulalry bright but I never cease to be amazed by the utter poverty of knowledge that some people display...! Especially when they go on national TV and do not appear to bat an eye lid when they confirm how thick they actually are
in front of a national audience!
It's usually some spotty nerd from university that gets tripped up with what I would have considered was a fairly elementary history question, but not so last night.
In one corner we had a Farrah Fawcett Majors granny with 62 years on the clock (...and some).
Opposition was provided by a budding scientist studying a PhD ....... although clearly the biology elements of her studies had not been covered in great detail as yet !
Q1) Which island was at the centre of a major missile crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962..... !
This was directed to our 62 year old who in her formative years must have been making buns in domestic science rather than studying political history, ok no probs with that !
... but how on earth could you then miss every single reference or anniversary in respect of this topic in the next 50 years ....... after an initial "hmmmm" followed by a less than reassuring "not sure on this one", we started to drift down an analysis based on the geography of an island equidistant between the two ......you could see the mind working heavy overtime as she concluded with a fair degree of optimism that it must be "Hawaii", yes thats Hawaii.....
I was only aghast that she did seem to actually know the general location of the US and Russia, well sort of, ..ish anyway !
In the other corner wearing the lab coat and holding a pipette, our budding scientist.
Dale was clearly swayed by a promise of clear interllect and initially swooned around her, sadly it would have been more enlightening to establish exactly how far along this course she actually was, she quickly proved not that far !
Q2) ...Which continent does the "Common Swift" migrate to.... South America, Africa, or Australia....two things appeared to totally flummox her here....the 1st being the term "migrate".
The second was "Common Swift" ......"Gawd I am not exactly sure what a Common Swift is.." she yellped.
Here she displayed a total inability to establish that migrate tends to refer to birds, insects and some form of sea life such as Killer Whales or Turtles !
At this point I was thinking God help us ! If this is the platform on which scienctists of tomorrow are perched I fear for the future of humanity !
..I did wonder if felt that the said "Common Swift" was infact some form of UK based land mammal, but if this was her conclusion, she seemed to fail to grasp how on earth it would actually migrate across the Channel anyway ?
"Channel Tunnel" , maybe, taking in a long week end at Euro Disney or how about the Portsmouth - Cherbourg Ferry.....
...suffice to say she missed the answer "Africa" by about 10,000 miles........
Rant Over....enjoy your week !
We could perhaps include a contestants thought logic as to how on earth they came up with their answer. Usually their dim conclusions generally add to the overall spectacular mood of total and abject dimness.....
Two gems appeared as ever, on last nights "In it to win it", a programme which never fails to provide a rich vein to tap into on a saturday night, (before its followed by the abject misery of casualty) !
I don't regard myself as interllectual or particulalry bright but I never cease to be amazed by the utter poverty of knowledge that some people display...! Especially when they go on national TV and do not appear to bat an eye lid when they confirm how thick they actually are
in front of a national audience!
It's usually some spotty nerd from university that gets tripped up with what I would have considered was a fairly elementary history question, but not so last night.
In one corner we had a Farrah Fawcett Majors granny with 62 years on the clock (...and some).
Opposition was provided by a budding scientist studying a PhD ....... although clearly the biology elements of her studies had not been covered in great detail as yet !
Q1) Which island was at the centre of a major missile crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1962..... !
This was directed to our 62 year old who in her formative years must have been making buns in domestic science rather than studying political history, ok no probs with that !
... but how on earth could you then miss every single reference or anniversary in respect of this topic in the next 50 years ....... after an initial "hmmmm" followed by a less than reassuring "not sure on this one", we started to drift down an analysis based on the geography of an island equidistant between the two ......you could see the mind working heavy overtime as she concluded with a fair degree of optimism that it must be "Hawaii", yes thats Hawaii.....
I was only aghast that she did seem to actually know the general location of the US and Russia, well sort of, ..ish anyway !
In the other corner wearing the lab coat and holding a pipette, our budding scientist.
Dale was clearly swayed by a promise of clear interllect and initially swooned around her, sadly it would have been more enlightening to establish exactly how far along this course she actually was, she quickly proved not that far !
Q2) ...Which continent does the "Common Swift" migrate to.... South America, Africa, or Australia....two things appeared to totally flummox her here....the 1st being the term "migrate".
The second was "Common Swift" ......"Gawd I am not exactly sure what a Common Swift is.." she yellped.
Here she displayed a total inability to establish that migrate tends to refer to birds, insects and some form of sea life such as Killer Whales or Turtles !
At this point I was thinking God help us ! If this is the platform on which scienctists of tomorrow are perched I fear for the future of humanity !
..I did wonder if felt that the said "Common Swift" was infact some form of UK based land mammal, but if this was her conclusion, she seemed to fail to grasp how on earth it would actually migrate across the Channel anyway ?
"Channel Tunnel" , maybe, taking in a long week end at Euro Disney or how about the Portsmouth - Cherbourg Ferry.....
...suffice to say she missed the answer "Africa" by about 10,000 miles........
Rant Over....enjoy your week !
0
Comments
She also thought Jan Leeming was going to be Chinese as in Jan Lee Ming and that Omar Sharif was a boxer.
This is a superb idea. I have found myself agog and aghast several times at "dumb Britain" and have to go for long walks in order to calm down. Since the medication seems to be working I cannot recall any gems at time of writing but I shall try and remember some.
I, like you, do not hold myself in high rankings of intelligence but I do think there's some general knowledge that everyone should know!
Well done! A superb thread!
Anne Robinson:Which member of the Royal Family appeared in the 200th edition of A Question Of Sport?.
Contestant:Ricky Tomlinson
The answer was Princess Anne.
naaaaah
PMSL. That is genius.
Great thread.
I don't consider myself particularly dumb, but what am I missing here? I thought Princess Anne did appear on A Question of Sport (or maybe it was Zara Phillips?).
try reading it again?
the answer WAS princess anne.
Reminds me of TOTP in 1982, where Dexy's were playing "Jackie Wilson Said", and the person in charge of the big screen obviously misunderstood, and put up a huge picture of legendary Scottish darts player, Jocky Wilson...
Regards
I think I heard down the line that that was an intentional joke as opposed to a mistake.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1220786
K
Questions CAN be tricky though. I was once asked a quiz question which began (I thought) "Which Beatle......?"
My brain was instantly transferring my Fab Four knowledge out of backing store into main memory as the questioner went on ...
"Which beetle ... was revered as a god in ancient Egypt?"
My brain almost overheated as I stored away John, Paul, George and Ringo and went searching the Ancient Egypt folders for "scarab"!
I believe they are told to do that.
"I'm going for A: Tutti Frutti."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because it's the answer".
Was she the one who said she had gone the programme to prove to everybody she was more than a just a good looking dumb blonde and then got every question wrong?
I think she was a brunette, it was the episode from about 3 weeks ago where all the contestants were pretty thick.I think the blonde may have been in that episode though.