Poll : Do you know what year Henry VIII was born

[Hallucigenia]

I hadnt realised the comments about Jackie Stewart were "real".

I doubt two of my 20s kids would know who he is, and the third might but only because he is a F1 fan

Oh yes, Michael Gove thinks you need to know who Jackie Stewart is to function as a British citizen in the 21st century (at least as of 2019). Admittedly he stuck in my mind just because he was the longest ago, most of them were more like Steve Redgrave era - I only remember him because the person I know just had a complete mental blank over the fact he was a rower.

OTOH they were fascinated by the "day to day interactions with government" section (whatever it's called), and would proudly ask at random things like "Did you know a car needs an annual MOT after three years?". Yes, we've all got cars. To be fair I can see the point of that kind of thing, but the 15 random sportspeople are tough. Worse were the cultural icons, I'd not heard of some of the NI/Welsh artists, poets etc.

Part of it is that presumably these things only get updated every 10-15 years, but in the meantime they need a corpus of information to test that's fixed and unchanging, whereas sporting glory is far more fleeting.

Edit - ah yes, a reminder courtesy of sd's link of another example of ticking Celtic boxes, the Olympic female multi-event athlete is ... Mary Peters.

[servodude]

Part of it is that presumably these things only get updated every 10-15 years, but in the meantime they need a corpus of information to test that's fixed and unchanging, whereas sporting glory is far more fleeting.

Still time for Bradley Wiggins to muck up the question comparing him to Chris Hoy then!

[Rhyd6]

I knew this but only because my Table Quiz for last weeks quiz was based on questions from the Citizenship Test. Out of 8 teams taking part only 2 teams got the year right. I doubt if any of the teams, me included, would have managed a score high enough to pass.

R6

[88V8]

I knew this but only because my Table Quiz for last weeks quiz was based on questions from the Citizenship Test. Out of 8 teams taking part only 2 teams got the year right. I doubt if any of the teams, me included, would have managed a score high enough to pass.

But you're not meant to pass What on earth gave you that idea...

V8