I am astonished when witnessing people travelling through life not picking up on what I consider to be basic knowledge. The man from Surrey in 1993 who was about 20 years older than me, saying that he had “absolutely no idea” that England had won the World Cup in 1966. He’s more of a rugger fan, you see. Or the young girl who told me that she had seen “Mick Jagger and his band” at Glastonbury. I mean, honestly!
And yet…as my children get older I start to realise I have unforgivable, jaw-dropping blind spots of my own.
To whit the Avengers series of films. I think it involves Captain America and other comic book heroes. Yet I continue to associate the Avengers films with Steed, Emma Peel – and then the new version with Purdy and whoever Gareth Hunt’s character was. I suspect that has nothing to do with it (but I’m not sure…).
I have totally lost track of Batman films – I’d say around the time of Seal singing Kiss to a Rose. The one with all the Prince songs is seen by today’s kids as like Steamboat Willie was to us. And there’s been just the three Alien films, amirite? Oh.
I know all I have to do is read up about it all but, you know, I’m feeling like it wasn’t meant to be so I will be OK. Twilight is another one. Vampires. I know it’s about vampires. You may well be reading this and thinking “I knew ol’ BC was a bit of a thicko – but this really takes the biscuit!”. Or something along those lines.
But I challenge you to confess your blind spots. Have you even heard of Perki Sal(ad) Creme, Kendrick Lamaar’s protégé, who recently won 12 USVDA awards?
Or is your blind spot more in the realm of gardening, geography or French politics? Just how stupid can you be?
I did an organised radio quiz way back, with an audience, and one of my questions was “name the TV theme tune”. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but it was clearly ubiquitous to everyone in the room, except me. When I answered “Sorry, I’ve no idea” the whole place audibly gasped.
Probably akin to Strictly these days. And I don’t know that one either.
I’d have been in trouble with that one too.
A few years ago I attended a local concert given by a regional youth orchestra, the main work being Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony. For an encore the orchestra played something not listed in the programme, which the youngsters in the audience all appreciated, and which I simply didn’t recognise at all. It was the theme music to the Harry Potter series of films, none of which I’ve seen.
I once went to a lecture on Finnegan’s Wake. The Polish translator of the book was there. He presented a theory that one of the chapters had musical notation hidden within it (plausible, as everything is in Finnegan’s Wake) demonstrated where the notes where, and then played it. Yes, it was the Harry Potter theme.
Now obviously James Joyce did not actually compose the Harry Potter theme in the pages of Finnegan’s Wake, this dude was taking the piss a bit. My point is that I didn’t recognise it either.
The other week when the death of a Norwegian resistance fighter, who was involved with the raid on the Nazi nuclear plant at Telemark was announced, the BBC reporter (I believe it was Ben Ando) reported that “heavy water” was so called because it had an extra oxygen atom in its nucleus.
I regard this as appalling ignorance of very basic science. If the reporter didn’t know, an editor should have picked it up (it was a pre-recorded piece). It’s nothing esoteric that only a nuclear physicist would know.
It’s a Paul Weller album isn’t it?
Quite right, Carl. National TV and radio have a responsibility to get their facts right.
I was delighted that my son and his class were watching some topical BBC news clips on line in their English lesson this week. So the Beeb better not be misleading the youth of Sweden!
But as for the rest of us…
Twilight is for teenagers. The Stones are for old geezers and geezettes. The Afterword is articulate, well-read sophisticates.
If you are not in the target group (and even if you are), ignorance is perfectly acceptable.
I like a quiz – but I’m hopeless at art. Whenever I watch University Challenge, and a picture round comes on, if it’s paintings I’m flapping around like a fish shouting out random artist’s names. It’s something I’d like to mug up on (I love galleries), but never seem to get round to it.
Living in Canada (and now a Canadian) I am ashamed to have no knowledge of (ice) hockey. It is practically a religion here and when people are discussing it I tend to nod sagely and agree the “Leafs” have no chance this year.
Well….
As someone who spends far too much of my free time watching “haaakey”, Tronner are no longer the “Make Beliefs” or the “Maple Laughs”.
Some judicious recent high end drafting (Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner) which has yielded 2 of the better players in the league, a blockbuster free agent signing this summer (John Tavares (from the New York Islanders, not the soul group)), some prior draft picks maturing nicely (Nazem Kadri, Morgan Rielly, Kaspari Kapanen), a top notch Danish goalie (Frederik Andersen), some quality veteran signings (Patrick Marleau) and the appointment of a coach who once played ice hockey for the Whitley Bay Warriors for a season in 1987/8 (Mike Babcock), the Leafs are currently 3rd in the NHL (out of 31 teams), and are thought of as legit Stanley Cup contenders.
Go, Leafs, go, is all you need to know.
‘Leaves’, surely?
The internet says not, in this case. But you can’t believe everything you read on there…
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Actors. I see a reasonable number of movies but unless the person in question is stunningly good I wont recall them next time around and, even then, I will go who is that again?
Football – I have no interest in it, apart from the village team my lad plays for.
I have never bought a lottery ticket (I have a Maths A-level, you see, and know 14 million to one are shit odds).
I have never operated an iDevice. I have taken some to bits, though.
I have never Tweeted or Instagrammed.
I’ve never seen more than a glimpse of Big Strictly Bakeoff Island.
My 15-y-o daughter thinks I am a dinosaur.
I haven’t got a Maths A Level (only a Grade C O Level) but also recognise that 14million to 1 are shit odds.
Tweeting and Strictly Baking Off Factor are two other things that I too remain happily ignorant of
You are Steve. But you are one of us.
Gabba gabba!
When Steve Redgrave was knighted I had no idea who he was. Mind you, I make a point of missing every second of the Olympics.
“I don’t know…. ask Steve Redgrave.
But I don’t even know Steve Redgrave!”
‘…and neither do YOU, theatre!’
“Sting in the tail, hippies!”
I often think “would I have known that when I was younger?” Normally the answer is no, and it’s become easier and easier to breeze through a full life without bumping the edges to pick up the bits that you’re really not interested in. When there were three TV channels and one pop (UK) radio station, everything had to be funneled through them or ignored so in effect, a lot of our lives (and knowledge) was curated by the BBC. I recall my dad, at exam time, saying that it was a pity they didn’t put a few more bits of useful information on Radio 1 as it might help me with my exams!
The fact I don’t know what the current No1 is says more about the diversity of immediate music sources than me. The fact I couldn’t even guess what the headline film is in the cinemas this week, probably says something about me.
I know loads more things than I would have done (at the age I am now) 30 years ago purely because it’s so easy to look it up.
Limitlessly stupid and/or ignorant. I’m not even sure I know how to do my job of 25 years properly. I talk to colleagues and peers and often come away silently aghast at what they ‘know’ and I don’t.
Popular music and culture – I am lost and ivory-skulled. I hadn’t heard of Ariana Grande until that terrible attack in Manchester. Demi Lovato, again someone immensely well known to a lot of people, i hadn’t an inkling of until her problems with addiction became a headline some months ago. There will be dozens of others in the firmament entertaining millions I haven’t noticed.
A definite old fogey, I find pop today very samey I don’t mind and I’m not going to gripe about it. There are gigabytes of other things I enjoy. Let ver kids like what they like. I did look at a youtube vid which sought to explain why most pop ballads these days sound so alike. Its for the simple and possibly obvious reason that most of them have been written by a core of 2 or 3 songwriting teams. From Sweden, I think. They all use the ubiquitous ‘Millennial Whoop’ (the ‘woah-oh woah-oh’ chorus feature) which apparently kids really like.
I had heard of Ariana Grande, but had no idea (1) she’d been going out with Mac Miller (2) she’d broken up with Mac Miller (3) who Mac Miller was (4) Mac Miller had died from an overdose.
Demi Lovato?!! Nope, never heard of her … I’ve done some Googling and I clearly missed the stories in the press altogether – I haven’t just forgotten. I may have seen the Guardian headline ”
‘I wasn’t ready to get sober’: how Demi Lovato faces her demons squarely” but why would I have been interested enough to even read the first sentence if I’d never heard of her?
At this year’s Brit Awards the best female went to Dua Lipa. Not only had I never knowingly heard her music, I hadn’t even heard of her *at all*. In fact I had to look up her name before posting this because I’d forgotten it again. I call myself a music nerd, and yet I have no opinion on the supposedly best (or at least most successful, sales count for more than quality at the Brits) British female of the previous 12 months. Fairly sure she wouldn’t be my type of thing, but to not have heard of her was quite a strange one for me…
But it really doesn’t matter does it? Unless of course you’re in a pub quiz.
There were Brit Awards?
I was football mad as a kid and can still reel off all kinds of useless football facts from 1977 to around 1985. Despite continuing to be an avid Barnsley fan (last night’s Checkatrade Cup game against Everton U21s will live long in the memory…) I stopped watching any football on TV some time ago, because I despise what has happened to the game, in terms of the influence of money and the amount of cheating you see every match. I don’t even bother with World Cup games. So my mates were all amused a year or so ago when I had to ask them who this Mo Salah guy played for when he won the footballer of the year award.
Another thing I was totally oblivious to is the album charts. I never listen to the radio, so I have no idea who is well known and successful and all that, so I’ve found that many new artists, particularly hip hop artists, that I get into and think are megastars are pretty much unknown, whilst some I think are obscure are headlining festivals. A good example is J. Cole, who I saw on TV playing at a festival and I was surprised to see such a big crowd singing along with him. I thought he was quite obscure, but it turns out his last album made the top 10. Similarly with The Internet (the group, that is). Their album made the top 20, whilst I’d been recommending them to a mate as if I was the only person that had ever heard of them. He must have thought I was daft. The albums charts are crazy. You wouldn’t believe some of the albums that have spent hundreds of weeks in the chart. Whilst some albums enter the chart at number 6 or something and then totally disappear from it the next week.
I know what you mean about “megastars in my house but unknown to the public”.
My kids, having been brought up hearing both, can equally name the members of The Dawn Chorus and of The Beatles. There are probably a billion times as many fans of the Fabs as there are of TDC.
Touring musicians often drop in to my house for a cuppa. See my daughter’s question (she was about 5, and we’d often play The Seeger Sessions on the school run): “Dad, can you invite Bruce Springsteen round for tea next?”
I used to take them to gigs as kids, quite often on the guest list as I knew either the band or promoter. They were quite shocked the first time I had to pay for tickets, and did not jump onstage to say hello to the musicians after the set. I had to explain to them that I didn’t actually know any of the members of the LSO (or whoever it was).
My kids will undoubtedly think that Sophie Ellis-Bextor (the Wad house favourite) is the most famous female in pop and they could sing a couple of dozen of her songs, but I doubt if they’ve even heard of Madonna.
My kids can tell whether African pop cones from Zim, Sth Africa, central or West Africa.
They can pick a song is by Thomas Mapfumo or Oliver Mtukudzi and can spot the sound of an mbira at 30 paces
Wonder how that happened.
From the other end, when I was ten – in 1984 – I could solemnly inform you that the definitive line-up of Family was Chapman, Whitney, Grech, King and Townsend – in much the same way that other children might dutifully recite verses from the Koran or the Talmud.
Nobody in my school, and probably no-one in our whole village of 4000 people, would have had a clue what I was talking about.
When my lad first attended primary school, he was 4 years and two days old. His reception teacher asked him what his favourite song was. She was expecting Old McDonald Had A Farm. Like the very well-mannered ginger-haired white boy in a rural Cambridgeshire village that he was, he answered:
“‘Monkey Man’ by Toots and the Maytals, Miss.”
Daddy promptly received a rather anxious phone call from his teacher, along the lines of “Is he alright?”
The next day, I had to take the CD into school as proof…
I’m not surprised his teacher was alarmed. “Monkey Man” was credited to The Maytals. The “Toots and” prefix didn’t appear until 1972.
Not judging, but I might have considered informing social services.
I would have said Schoolboy Error, only it wasn’t Fenton Jr. who’d got it wrong.
I believe that within the past few years the record for longest run at number one in the charts was either beaten, equalled or came very close.
This would have been catnip to me 30 years ago. Now, not only do I not know the artist/record in question, but I don’t care that I don’t know.
When Mrs M tells folk that I am incredibly knowledgeable about music I usually hastily append “from at least 20 years ago”. My music knowledge is the only thing to have been genuinely affected by the Minellium Bug.
Films? If they stopped making them altogether I literally wouldn’t notice.
Is that the Liza Minellium bug?
Oh I say! Very well played.
I have no knowledge of anything top 40 since 2000.
I have never watched a Superhero film…although i did see a few minutes of the first Batman flick, the one featuring Jack Nicklolson.
The wife loves them but is technically a duffus, so i operate the Amazon, Netflix, DVD player and stereo then go drinking.
She was warching a Transformers flick recently and i was home early…..with the amp on loud i thought it was WW3.
I recently realised i really, realy hate Stand up comedians……all of them.
What about Dave Allen though?
He usually sits down. (or did)
Yeah… Anybody would think that was why I mentioned him.
Uncertain you were old enough for that demographic, you sly so and so.
I am. The line “….they don’t even fart!” was legendary in our house.
Ironically in his later ITV shows he did stand up. Perhaps because he’d stopped smoking and didn’t need to be next to a table with an ashtray on it.
I can function reasonably well at work. In fact, some people think I do a good job. However, as soon as I cross the threshold at home, it all falls to shit. I’m incapable of doing anything, even breathing it seems. I speak into an echo chamber. The dog ignores me, too.
Me too. Mrs. T gave me “putting the yoghurt pot lid in the bin” lessons the other day.
This is a great observation – and will ring quite true of many of us, I think. Every now and then I meet a builder/handyman who is a really nice bloke and knows how to fix stuff and effortlessly sort DIY things out. Compared to someone like that, I am nothing, no higher than a worm. Why can’t I be like him? He can do something in 5 minutes that would take me all morning.
You Tube has been my saviour many times as there’s always a little video done by someone about anything. Also being able to take photos instantly is a godsend so that you can show intimidating alpha male expert DIY bloke what is happening.
Yes. Me too.
We had a minor drainage problem at the front of our house last autumn. I was outside stood looking at it. The old lady next door saw me and patiently explained it should be OK because of the soakaway. She then had to explain what a soakaway was.
It’s the bit in Playaway where they chuck water at each other, silly!
In fairness to you all (and to defend my own stupidity/ignorance), the Internet has splintered popular culture. I work in Manchester, and I’ll walk past the arena (concert capacity: 18,000) and see who’s on. Invariably, I’ve literally never heard of them.
My nan knew who Boy George was (and loved him). People, culture and events just don’t hit the mass public consciousness in the same way.
This was my point about David Hepworth’s recent comment that “pop music today is unavoidable.”
I think it’s completely avoidable (whether you’re consciously trying to avoid it or not) in a way that the presence of Boy George, as suggested by your nan’s experience, was not.
Another wrong theory from the great sage.
Beyond albums like Essential Classics, Spectacular Classics and The Best Classical Album In The World … Ever, my knowledge of Classical Music is pretty much restricted to:
“Aah, thats the one from that advert”
I’d like to thank all of you for making me feel like a genius… 😉
But I have zero interest in cars and can’t tell them apart or remember what they look like. When a friend of mine is picking me up with her car I always have to ask “What colour is it?” She then says “It’s the same car I had last time!” And I say “That doesn’t help me – I’ve no idea what your car looks like!”
She can’t understand how I can fail to learn to recognise it, and I live in fear of jumping into somebody elses car…
All cars look the same to me. I think that’s partly because of the homogenisation of car design – when I was a kid there was a wide range of wacky-looking vehicles on the road in England and it was easy to tell them apart – no-one would mistake an Austin Allegro for a 2CV.
They are mainly the same colour too these days.
Yeah…. metallic something or other.
Over here? College Ball – basket or foot.
It’s a religion, and yet another one about which I am atheist. I have come close to death when I have suggested that we call it what it is; semi pro ball.
Semi pro ball is an unpleasant urological condition that is no cause for levity.
Blockchain, bitcoin….no idea. People have tried explaining it but I feel like a stone age man who has come across paper money and can’t understand what it’s for and how it bloody works. Apparently it uses an immense amount of computer power to create it…quite why I have not the foggiest.
Blockchain is something to do with plumbing, I fail to see why computers would be involved.
Now that’s something you simply can’t just pick up from reading a couple of articles and overhearing some conversations. I felt the need to understand blockchain so I watched a TED talk. It was very enlightening and it’s more straightforward than I assumed it was. I understood every word….don’t ask me to explain it to you now though… I haven’t got time!
Bitcoin’s servers use 0.5% of the entire world’s energy consumption, apparently – roughly the same as Ireland.
There was a sweet clip of young Kilmarnock fan on the BBC website a week ago rattling out the names (in order of their squad number) of the Killie squad without hesitation. I’m thirty-two and would struggle to tell you the first ‘eleven’ of the team I support without cheating.
Like Mr Black, I am completely ignorant of superhero films. Actually, that’s not quite true. I saw Superman (the Christopher Reeve one), Iron Man on Netflix one night when I was bored, and whatever the Taika Waititi one was called because I’m a fan of his.
There must be a surfeit, surely? If you keep an eye on the covers of Empire and/or Total Film (which I do, thanks to Readly), they seem to feature a superhero every month.
Does Howard the Duck count as a superhero?
Of course. But he’s no match for Dangermouse.
Crumbs!
Not even if supported by Superted?
Supported by Superted. Superted by Supported. Sported by Spurted. Soporific by Suppository.
Oh god, this has gone weird now – can we not just say “with heavy friends”?
I think the preferred nomenclature is “food non-averse” or even “curvy” friends. I could be wrong…
Oh, so it’s like when I loudly proclaim “You’re no stranger to a fish supper!”
Exactly! Maybe slightly more PC. Slightly…
…a deep-fried tofu supper, then?
Curvy friends? Bananaman!!!!
Hurrah!
I read that as Bananarama….
The question I’ve asked in the office of our younger staff is whether they can name all four Beatles.
I rarely get a correct answer (and on a couple of occasions they had never heard of the band at all!). Try it – it’s mystifying.
My son asked someone at his school whether he liked Jimi Hendrix and got the answer that he didn’t really like snooker…