DW ran a stall at her school Open Evening earlier this week and, as part of the entertainment, offered a France/Spain quiz for prospective parents and kids to do together. Now, if I'd been doing this, I imagine I'd have started with something like "Who's the prospective female socialist Presidential candidate?", or maybe "Name a French film actor", if I was feeling kind. DW, though, knows her target market and took a few steps back from this: the questions were on a very primitive level. It was depressing how few had any clue about "What's the capital of Spain?", despite the hefty hints she gave, i.e. "it's on the page somewhere" (there was a question further down, "Name a Real Madrid player" - this caused one woman to say: "uuugh, ah ditten fink that were a real plaaayce, like, ah thought it were just t'name of t'footbaaaaal team")... "Name a Spanish-speaking country apart from Spain" had people saying "ooh, ah dunno, I were never any good at geography, me", and produced answers as wide-ranging as Brazil (close, but no cigar), Portugal (??), Tenerife (she let them have that as they were at least trying) and Barcelona.
When DW gave one couple heavy hints to steer them in the direction of Mexico, the woman came out with the classic response, "ooooh, ay, I knew it were one o'them South African ones."
And this is in a well-regarded school in the top quarter of the league tables.
Watching "University Challenge" always makes me aware of the gaps in my knowledge, but I'm worried that the above experience is actually representative of the population as a whole.
For me, it's not so much the lack of knowledge as the lack of intellectual curiosity. If I don't know something I immediately want to know it, and will go and look it up - so easy these days with Google and Wikipedia, or even the old Encyclopaedia Britannica. It's the pride some people take in their stupidity which makes me angry.