Apparently, one in three UK citizens in a recent survey think Biggles was real, and one in four believe Winston Churchill was a fictional character.
I wonder what percentage of UK citizens think that surveys themselves are fictional, albeit entertaining. No one has ever asked me such questions for a survey.
7 comments:
I've been asked several times, in person and on the phone. Sadly, at the end of each conversation, they ask if you do any of a list of jobs, one of which is journalist, which disqualifies you.
No no noooooo I refuse to believe those results.
I'm always sceptical of such surveys and the means by which they collect and collate the data. Can people really be that ill-informed? Perhaps I have a misguided and naive belief in humanity.
One day a month I believe I'm the fictional character called "the poet A.B. Jackson" and end up writing a poem.
ABJ
Some people do get these odd ideas in their heads and then can't seem to shake them, even when somebody tries to correct them. For instance, the deputy head of a school I was visiting this week (as Warwick Poet Laureate) innocently told the kids that poets like myself were 'paid' by the local council to write poetry.
When I later disabused her of this unlikely notion, she gave exactly the same introduction to the next class of kids, but added 'though she claims not to be paid very much'.
These old myths die hard. Poets that are paid a monthly salary like civil servants - ha!
Biggles isn't real?
Stupidity or whimsy on a national scale?
J
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