BS: 'I Don't Believe It'

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Jim Martin
Date: 06 Feb 08 - 08:56 PM

There's hope in the primary schools here in Eire, read in the paper yesterday they're teaching the kids to grow potatoes, at last they're going to learn something useful!

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 11:18 PM

How about Sawney Bean? There seem to be varying opinions on whether he was real or not.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 11:14 PM

Riding through a city naked in those days would not have been a good idea, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Slag
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 10:33 PM

Was Alfred Noyes real?

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 06:30 PM

There was also an English noblewoman who is thought to have been the model for the Lady Godiva character, but there is afaik no evidence that she rode through Coventry or anywhere else naked.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 06:17 PM

Re Turpin - there's the Bold Turpin Hero version (which I've heard Burl sing) and the English highwayman myth version researched by Jim Sharpe (who was singing at the Oxford Heritage Club when I was a student, but subsequently became a history professor at York university).

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 05:05 PM

And that the wizard Merlin isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 05:01 PM

The ignorance of people nowadays is shocking. There are even some who believe that Penelope Rutledge is a fictional character.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 04:08 PM

You'd be surprised Don. My kids don't even believe in Father Christmas - een when the evidence is right there in front of their eyes in their Christmas stockings every year!

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 03:33 PM

So,....am I to understand that the English DON'T give tours of the ruins of Hogwarts? What's the matter -- too good for the rest of us? Snooty?


A

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 03:25 PM

With Thomas Jefferson's remark that democracy depends on an informed electorate in mind, when I encounter the appalling level of ignorance there is out there, I—

Well, let's put it this way:    I had some pretty good history and civics teachers in high school (graduated in 1949). Not only did they impart the information, they made it interesting, and most of the kids paid attention. Then, when I was in college, I read the results of a survey the campus newspaper did. They gave a questionnaire to several hundred students (that's college students). Among other things, less than half could name the state's two senators, even less than that knew who their congressional representative was, about seventy-five percent couldn't name the Secretary of State, and around four percent couldn't name the President!

Senator McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee were riding high about that time, and the students in the survey were asked to read a copy of the Bill of Rights without being told what it was. Then they were asked if they'd be willing to sign it. Over half said "No."

The survey also asked if they could name the Canadian provinces. Less than a quarter could. In the meantime, my eleven-year-old niece, who had been educated in Canadian schools, could name all the provinces, of course, and could go on to name all 48 of the United States (this was before Alaska and Hawaii became states), and most of their capitals.

I was always under the impression that education in Great Britain was the best in the world. What's happening?

. . . next, someone's going to try to tell me that Blackadder wasn't a real historical person. . . .

Don Firth

P. S. Wibble wibble!

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 03:01 PM

Many of the greatest war leaders of that time were taken prisoner at some point and ransomed, alanabit. I see no reason to criticize Richard the 1st for that. It was a common thing, because ransoming the nobles and bigwigs from an opposing army was a fantastic way of raising money at that time. They were usually worth far more to their captors alive than dead.

Joan of Arc was one spectacular exception to that rule, at least as far as the English were concerned. The Duke of Burgundy (whose men had captured her) attempted to ransom her from the King of France, but he got no response...an extraordinary betrayal, considering what she'd done for France. So eventually the English paid Burgundy for her instead and got her in their hands so that they could dispose of her permanently...which they did, after some considerable difficulty, as she proved very difficult to outsmart in a series of eclesiastical trials arranged to establish her supposed "heresy"...the only excuse they could find to condemn her to death.

Now some of Joan's most notable English foes were also captured at various times during that war, such as the great Lord Talbot. I believe he was twice captured by the French and ransomed by the English, despite the fact that he almost always won his battles. He finally fell in battle in the last significant fight of the Hundred Years War, which was won decisively by the French.

And good riddance, I say. The man had been a curse upon the inhabitants of France.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 02:36 PM

I believe there was a historical King Arthur too. There would have been a second had Henry VIII's son lived. However, I don't think our historical king had much in common with Geoffrey of Monmouth's!

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 02:29 PM

PErhaps -- the arguments of historical interpretation know no bounds. But he was a living man, which is very much the point.

The next you will hear is that 12 per cent of Americans hope to meet a hobbit some day, or to take a trip to England to tour the ruins of Hogwarts. Surely they give tours, don't they?? ;>)


A

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 02:23 PM

While I agree that there is a pretty abysmal knowledge of history among many of my contemporaries, I see nothing wrong in challenging some of the accepted wisdom. Richard, Couer de Lion, had only the   most tenuous claim to being English. For a start, he didn't even speak the language! He was reckoned to be brave in battle, but his unfortunate habit of being in inappropriate places at inappropriate times caused him to be twice taken prisoner and ransomed. He's not the first man I would want to claim as a national hero!

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 02:03 PM

well...what to say but "amen" to Amos & Ebbie.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 01:36 PM

Wonder if it was ever thus? Isn't it possible that the 'common people' of the world have always paid but little attention to facts and have always relied instead upon their own widely disseminated beliefs? That is the impression we have always been given of the 'peasantry'.

Maybe human beings tune out everything that does not seem to impact themselves. When people consider themselves to be powerless?

As I've said many times before, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler seems more and more pertinent.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 10:32 AM

Where was it, exactly, that we let go of the rope on educational effectiveness and standards, in exchange for this kind of cognitive laissez-faire, absolute intellectual anarchy?

I am all for intellectual freedom, but without a common base of facts, all bets are off, and the center will not hold.


A

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 09:57 AM

Lisa della Gioconda has been the favourite candidate for some years. Nice to see the authorities agreeing on something for once! More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Riginslinger
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 09:56 AM

I've talked to a number of people over the years who think Sherlock Holmes was a real person.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 09:35 AM

Check this out
Cheers, Seiri.

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:53 AM

From the UKTV Gold site (for 'twas they commissioned the survey):

Top ten fictional characters that the British public thinks are real

    * 1) King Arthur – 65%
    * 2) Sherlock Holmes – 58%
    * 3) Robin Hood – 51%
    * 4) Eleanor Rigby – 47%
    * 5) Mona Lisa -35%
    * 6) Dick Turpin – 34%
    * 7) Biggles – 33%
    * 8) The Three Musketeers – 17%
    * 9) Lady Godiva – 12%
    * 10) Robinson Crusoe – 5%


King Arthur- a myth but possibly with a core of fact.
Robin Hood- ditto.
Mona Lisa- certainly was a real person. Not exactly sure which real person.
Dick Turpin- real. Stories attached to him often belong to other (usually real) characters.
Lady Godiva - real though most famous exploit may or may not have happened.
Biggles- real. I was Biggles from 1961 to 1963, when I toiok to train spotting.

So we have a bigger story: UK TV Station's Researchers can't do their homework!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:06 AM

On University Challenge, someone thought Queen Elizabeth I reigned in the 19th century. Mere computer screens cannot do justice to Paxman's reaction.

Subject: BS: 'I Don't Believe It'
From: Fiolar
Date: 04 Feb 08 - 08:00 AM

I came across the following item and surely people can't be as silly as it apparently makes out. However watching various quiz programmes on TV, I find it amazing how many peoples' knowledge of history is abyssmal.

"Britons are losing a grip on fact and fiction - with nearly one in four believing Winston Churchill and Florence Nightingale are myths and more than half thinking Sherlock Holmes actually existed.

In a new survey, 47% of people thought that Richard the Lionheart, the 12th-century English king, was a myth.

They were also under the impression that Charles Dickens, one of the most famous writers in English literature, was a fictional character himself.

Indian political leader Gandhi; Cleopatra, ruler of ancient Egypt; adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh; British military leader Bernard Montgomery; and Boudica, famous for leading a major uprising against occupying Roman forces, were all thought to be characters dreamt up for films and books.

Britons thought fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes and pilot Biggles were real, according to the survey of 3,000 people commissioned to celebrate UKTV Gold's forthcoming Robin Hood season.

Over half of those questioned (58%) believe that the detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for his novels of the late 1880s actually lived in Baker Street, with sidekick Watson.

:: Historical figures and the percentage of Britons who believe they are myths:1. Richard the Lionheart (47%)2. Winston Churchill (23%)3. Florence Nightingale (23%)4. Bernard Montgomery (6%)5. Boudica (5%)6. Sir Walter Raleigh (4%)7. Duke of Wellington (4%)8. Cleopatra (4%)9. Gandhi (3%)10. Charles Dickens (3%)

:: Fictional figures and the percentage of Britons who believe they are real:Sherlock Holmes (58%)Biggles (33%)"