Ignorance; thy name is the Sun

This was in the Sun. Ten simple questions were asked to a 1000 people, resulting in 10% correctly answering all ten. These were the questions and answers:

1)      What is the first line of the National Anthem? God save our gracious Queen

2)      What date was the Battle of Hastings? 1066

3)      Who invented the telephone? Alexander Graham Bell

4)      How many wives did King Henry VIII have? 6

5)      Who wrote Oliver Twist? Charles Dickens

6)      Name the four members of the Beatles. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Star

7)      Which famous nurse was known as the Lady with the Lamp? Florence Nightingale

8)      Where was William Shakespeare born? Stratford-upon-Avon

9)      Who famously robbed from the rich to give to the poor? Robin Hood

10)  Who composed Land of Hope and Glory? Edward Elgar

I got 9/10; I didn’t know the last question. However, my problem is that two of the answers given in the Sun are incorrect or debatable at the very least. Alexander Graham Bell did not invent the telephone. Antonio Meucci demonstrated the teletrofono in 1860 and filed for a patent of sorts in 1871. Meucci fell ill and did not renew his patent in 1874 and Bell patent for the telephone was registered in 1876. In 2004 it was said that Meucci work on the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged as a part of his achievements. King Henry VIII did not have six wives. He had two or four if you are a Catholic. This is due to his marriage to Anne of Cleves being annulled, his marriage to Anne Boleyn was declared illegal for he was still married to Catherine of Aragon. Before Anne Boleyn was executed, Henry annulled the marriage. A similar process happened to Catherine Howard, the marriage was annulled due to the act, which Henry passed, of treason committed by a queen if she commits adultery, which she did before and during the marriage.

This is yet another dig at the British public being stupid.  However, the Sun top it by including themselves in that list by taking blind general ignorance as truth. Thank God for QI, without which we would be ruled by these idiots. A programme that teaches us that everything we know or think we know is wrong. Ignorance is the only thing we can cling onto from these damn newspapers. The other questions I assume are correct until proven otherwise by Stephen Fry, who I would believe over my own sense and mind.

Sorry for the history lesson and sorry that I did it, for Rosencrantz is the history buff around here. My field is science and sadly science fiction which, I know a dangerous amount about. Between us, we have a fair bit of knowledge in a few different subjects (not to sound arrogant or nothing). However, neither of us are competent in maths, post GCSE maths. Myself and Rosencrantz remember our A level maths lessons with a certain amount of dread and panic. Thankfully we seem to have the ability to erase information that is not useful from our brains and maths was deleted quite quickly after our Core 4 exam (much to Rosencrantz's detrement when she found herself with a seasonal job involving mental arithmetic), now neither of us know what a surd is or what we do with it. However this backfired on myself when I took a science course in which, maths was included. I would like to point out I did in the end get a distinction in maths and will be rubbing that in the face of those who doubted me at A level until the end of time.

- Guildenstern

P.s. Rosencrantz, please edit this if I'm wrong! I don't want to look like an idiot!


Ros: Done :)