I have recently had to stop watching a quiz show on TV, [University Challenge, BBC 2, UK] simply because it was making me angry. Get a life, I hear you say, but, to be quite honest, the contestants, who are all University students, and therefore should know a bit more than most, actually knew sod all about most things, and I started shouting at the TV. Answers to things I knew as a child were unknown to this crowd. One, whose field of study was Chemistry, did not know that the chemical symbol for Tungsten was 'W' [from it's old name of Wolfram, or Wolframite], at which point I turned the TV off. Another quiz show, more recently [Pointless, BBC1 UK] had a round simply to fill in the initials of famous Philosophers and Thinkers. Not one contestant had heard of Ayn Rand, John-Paul Sartre, or Friedrich Nietzche. Even my younger brother, who hated school, but is now an engineer, knew the answers.
I detested school, basically because the system held me back - in the late 1960's, children who could read and write prior to starting school, were treated with suspicion. I was reading at three, and writing by four, and in cursive script when I started school. My parents were criticized for letting me read 'Gulliver's Travels', and the book was taken from me and replaced with one of about 20 pages, 15 of which were pictures. They refused to believe I could read, until the head teacher made me read him sections of a book on geology that he had written, and asked me if I knew what it meant. I told him I did, and that I had similar books at home. Another thing was that, at age 6, my parents gave me a book that showed where babies came from. I was censured for frightening the other kids with that mind-blowing truth.
And so it went on. I went to school, learning nothing. When I left school - with qualifications, some for subjects, the lessons for which I hardly attended [my last school report was never viewed by mum and dad - it referred to me as a: 'Sinister Disruptive Influence', which I was mighty proud of].
I have, apart from a few weeks, always been in work, and have always been reading, and I have been cursed with always remembering interesting facts. I always have at least five different books on the go at any one time, viz:
1] In my bedroom. At present, it is 'Father Brown' by GK Chesterton.
2] In my living room. 'Studies In Terror - Landmarks Of Horror Cinema' by Jonathan Rigby.
3] In the bathroom. 'Timaeus and Critias' by Plato.
4] In the kitchen. 'Food For Free' by Richard Mabey.
5] At work. 'Necropolis - London And It's Dead' by Catherine Arnold.
I always feel lost if I go to someone's house, and there are no books visible. Is that odd?
I hate the current feeling, certainly with the younger generations that being 'thick' is somehow charming. It isn't. But it seems to be on the increase, and there's no real reason for it. A load of my brother's friends formed a pub quiz team. I joined in, but we had to have a name, so I supplied one, heard on an old chop-socky film. We were called: 'THE CERTIFIED MASTERS OF DEATH'. We were seven large blokes, so it was logical to have a fallback name in case one week there was a shortfall in team members for any reason. That was: 'THE BRIDES OF FU MANCHU'. We won, monotonously often[without recourse to cellphone googling], and it was great to hear the quizmaster say over the pub PA.: "Winners this week are... THE CERTIFIED MASTERS OF DEATH!", and to see the looks on the faces of the more staid pub punters [it could have been worse - one of the team suggested, quite seriously, that we be called 'SEVEN BIG CUNTS', but we vetoed that straight away].
So, the meek shall inherit the earth, but the thick get fuck all.
Here endeth the lesson.