anam_moon: (Black Cat Knot)
anam_moon ([personal profile] anam_moon) wrote2008-02-07 12:42 am
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Hmmm...don't drink the water over there, perhaps.

Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

UKTV Gold television surveyed 3,000 people.


Boy, I'll say they're losing their grip on reality. I kind of wish that Holmes had, in fact, been real, but for pity sake folks!

[identity profile] jackkansas.livejournal.com 2008-02-07 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I have long maintained that most of our species is functionally insane.

One of my favorite statistics (for which, alas, I have no source to cite) is that, of the people who do not believe in life after death, thirty percent believe that they have been in communication with a dead person.

The older I get, the more the world seems like Dawn of the Dead (2004).

[identity profile] anam-moon.livejournal.com 2008-02-09 09:54 am (UTC)(link)
LOL! That is a fantastic statistic. I never had a favorite statistic before, but I think that is it.