watch and weep

That was funny Jane and really redressed the balance.Thanks

Spot on eloethan

Jane

Jane

Thanks Jane - made me laugh out loud!

Loved that Jane, a friend is a travel Agent and is a great dinner party guest.
I have lost count,really, of the amount of people in the UK who when I am visiting ask me where I live and seem to have no idea at all where Brussels actually is. I get sick of saying 'Brussels is a city not an institution', and many of them have asked if I like living in France!!!!
An elderly aunt who i was visiting informed all and sundry that you couldn't buy bread where Felice lives so she has to make her own, I had been baking for my Mum and took her a fresh loaf.

Jane -

Well said Eloethan

Just for a bit of balance, here's something about us whingeing Poms that popped up on my Facebook feed. Apologies to anyone who has seen it before.
THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY "THOMAS COOK VACATIONS" FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS:

1. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."

2. "They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax."

3. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."

4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price."

5. "The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room."

6. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow."

7. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallartato close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time -- this should be banned."

8. "No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared."

9. "Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers."

10. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."

11. "The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun."

12. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair."

13. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends' three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller."

14. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the resort.' We're trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service."

15. "When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."

16. "We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning."

17. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."

18. "I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."

19. "My fiancée and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."

BE AWARE ...THEY WALK AMONG US and THEY VOTE!

I agree TriciaF it all depends on who is interviewed, I should think people almost anywhere are the same.The USA perhaps even more so as it is so very huge perhaps, some vast States are about the size of a country in themselves.

I may get like that soon Tricia F because I am becoming more and more frustrated and fed up with all of them!
#Headinsandandhappy

I wonder if the man or woman in the street in the UK would do any better?
I know a few people who wouldn't be able to answer those questions. They watch news on TV occasionally, but don't listen to the radio or read newspapers.
And I think Eloethan is right too.

I think you have it, Eloethan.

Why am I not surprised?

I was watching a British quiz programme a couple of months ago and two people - on different "teams" - who had quite good jobs and who seemed to be of average intelligence - could not answer very simple questions about politics. One of them thought Vince Cable was leader of the Labour Party and the other answer (which I can't remember) was equally ridiculous.

I expect a lot of American people were able to answer those questions but the only answers that were broadcast were the silly ones. However, it is worrying that so many people (and I don't think it's just Americans - although they can be very insular) seem to have little knowledge about anything other than popular culture. Sometimes I wonder if that is how the powers-that-be prefer it - an ignorant population is an easily fooled one.

I thought Tony Blair was a dancer?

I wonder if this was a compilation from CNN making the point about Trump voters? I don't know. I know someone who does market research in this Country and she says it is unbelievable how many people cannot name the P.M. at any given time.
I think less than 10% of American do not have a passport so insularity is not surprising. I hold Americans in high esteem; finding them intelligent and erudite, so this film was a shock to me.

what happened there?

I wonder how many Americans know much about the world outside America?

I know it was edited but I wonder how many Americans know much

The man got one thing right though: Tony Blair is an actor.

I belong to a couple of teachers' social networking sites, some of which have international members.

Somebody posted two secondary timetables from public (ie state) schools - one from a middle class area of Boston and another from a small town in the Mid West. The difference between the two was staggering. There is no National Curriculum in America, so the states decide what should be taught.

The Boston curriculum was very similar to what pupils in the UK learn - a balanced curriculum with English, maths, science, humanities, languages, creative arts. The Mid West timetable was math(s), English and that was about it. A primary school in the UK teaches a broader range of subjects.

It's no wonder that some Americans don't have much of an idea about the world outside the US.

But no one would think those people represented the entire population of the USA

You are right Iam64 - it almost destroys your faith in democracy.

I'm ashamed to say I'd believed the kind of publicity shown in this video clip, i.e., that citizens of the USA know nothing about the wider world. My visit to several American cities last year knocked that bigoted notion out of my head very quickly.

Like Luckygirl, I wonder how easy it would be to put together a similar video by interviewing people in the UK. It's shocking how little so many people know about their own countries, much less "abroad'

Clever editing or not, it was answers to questions

That's exactly what I thought!

Even allowing for clever editing, that is truly scary