The Footie

I'm not interested in football, although I do love the chat from my friends on Facebook when Scotland are playing. The commentary on tv and in the papers is always a laugh. I have friends in the Tartan Army and I love their stories about their travels. I'm sorry Scotland lost tonight against England but pleased they scored first and that the final result was a close-run thing against the auld enemy.

Then I switched on to Sky for the late night news and found journalists discussing the Scotland-England match as if the past twenty years had never happened. They were pleased - and surprised - that there has been no violence in central London and no trouble at the stadium. They mentioned a party at Trafalgar Square and washing up liquid flung in the fountain. One of them said she saw people in kilts and thought it was a stag do.

It occurs to me that journalists like this are not earning their wages. Their ignorance of anything outside their own wee corner, not just the Tartan Army, is shocking. When you come down to it, these people know less about what's happening in the UK than they do about - oh, I don't know - floods in middle America or civil war in Egypt...and no, I'm not saying the Tartan Army is more important than either of these, just that if we do live in a United Kingdom, it would be good to see some evidence of interest in what is happening north of Watford.

Then I remember embarrassing episodes of Pointless, Tipping Point and The Chase in which competitors seem to know nothing about any part of the UK. They excuse themselves by saying geography or history or literature is not their strong point. Makes me wonder what schools actually teach.

Some answers I remember hearing:
- rivers running through major UK cities: Norwich - the Norry
- capital city of Scotland: Clyde
- Wordsworth's first name: John

And there are odd replies from people on subjects they claim to know about: name 3 films starring Peter Sellers - who?

It used to be a point of honour for people on tv to claim they couldn't 'do' maths. It took me a while to realise they meant arithmetic (the times tables) rather than advanced calculus. Now maths is seen as so important no one would dare admit to being ignorant. Maybe it's time to put knowledge of the world - or at least the rest of the UK - back into the school syllabus.