Dodgy pollsters, a kraken wakes and I feel so very old

[matgb]

So then. Apparantly Brits can't distinguish history from the TV listings and think Churchill is a myth. The whole story, which seems to have got everywhere, is from a dodgy survey concocted by UKTV Gold in order to promote their repeating of the first series of Robin Hoodie. paulgregory shares my scepticism and thinks it's full of crap and like me would like to see the actual polling data, because reputable pollsters make their data available and it sounds as if it's a push poll to me. Best bit? Apparently these are the

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%

Note that the ones I've bolded aren't "fictional characters" Mr crappy publicist, but actual real people from history. Arthur almost certainly existed, but not with the stories that have grown up around him and the "round table". Robin Hood? Buried about 5 miles from here. Well, one of the blokes he was based on is, anyway. Lies, damned lies, and dodgy surveys concocted by publicists.

Meh, fun stuff. theweaselking has a very cool book/kraken sculpture, just go look, it's very cool but hard to describe. And something I forgot to link last time, Charlie Stross has decided to make a UK version of the annual Mindset List prepared each year by Beloit College Public Affairs. Scary, people that start their degrees this coming September were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall...

Comments

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Scary, people that start their degrees this coming September were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall...

That's not scary, it's bloody terrifying!

[matgb]

 

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

[deililly.livejournal.com]

I thought a good few of the fictional characters were based on true stories/people as well, so people could be forgiven for thinking those characters existed. I seem to remember reading something about a famous shipwrecked chap who inspired the author to write Robinson Crusoe.

Hello. I was enjoying reading so I added you - I hope you don't mind!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Alexander Selkirk.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

There was also a real Eleanor Rigby. From wikipedia:

"In the 1980s, a grave of an Eleanor Rigby was discovered in the graveyard of St. Peter's Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, and a few yards away from that, another tombstone with the last name McKenzie scrawled across it.[8][9] During their teenage years, McCartney and Lennon spent time "sunbathing" there; within earshot distance of where the two had met for the first time during a fete in 1957. Many years later McCartney stated that the strange coincidence between reality and lyric could be a product of his subconsciousness, rather than being a meaningless fluke.[8] The actual Eleanor Rigby was born in 1895 and lived in Liverpool, possibly in the suburb of Woolton, where she married a man named Thomas Woods. She died on 10 October 1939 at age 44. Whether this Eleanor was the inspiration for the song or not, her tombstone has become a landmark to Beatles fans visiting Liverpool. A digitized version was added to the 1995 music video for the Beatles' reunion song "Free as a Bird"."

[matgb]

I think, now oyu mention it, I vaguely knew that, but ultimately the song is of a fictional character with the same name, whereas the others are real but with embellishments to their story.

But I don't think it really matters that much, I just dislike the way it's been presented and the media, including the supposed qualities, have picked it up without question :-(

[exmoor-cat.livejournal.com]

Also, Robinson Crusoe's real name was Henry Pitman, according to a book from 2002 I read a while back.

[matgb]

I'd heard he was inspired by someone real, did the book say how much was fictionalised and how much of the story was real?

[exmoor-cat.livejournal.com]

Can't remember the title, but it looks like Wikipedia's got the details.

[purple-pen.livejournal.com]

I had the corresponding thought when someone on my flist posted the listed of 'real people the British public think are fictional'. In included people like Cleopatra and Boudicca, both of whom existed (insofar as we can prove anyone in the past - or even the present! - existed), but whom we know today primarily through literary mythologisations of them - much like King Arthur and Robin Hood.

Still, dodgy meaningless survey or not, I've swiped the two lists now for teaching purposes. They'll be helpful when addressing the same very fuzzy perceptions of the difference between myth and history that existed in the Roman world.

[matgb]

Aye—teaching the difference between perception and reality, and that it's the former that matters, is sometimes hard to do. First thing said to me in my first lecture on the politics course. By the end of the third year, half the course still didn't get it.

I'd really like to see the actual dataset though, it's just too sus, the questions must've been poor methodologically.

[davidnm.livejournal.com]

I think this poll can be summed up as 'slow news day, let's grab random idiots, ask them dumb questions and invite the public to laugh at them'. Or words to that effect (possibly slightly less cynically phrased).

[matgb]

Well, that's likely why it's getting coverage, so the PR person deserves some credit for getting the story out there, I just wish the media would do their jobs properly and stop just regurgitating press releases :-(

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Very cool Kraken sculpture!

Not so very cool stupid surveys.