Whilst driving to my netball game on Wednesday evening I was scanning through the radio stations showing absolutely no loyalty or allegiance (due to the sheer volume of unlistenable crap on commercial FM) and got stuck on 94.5 as they were paying tribute to 1992…after listening to some grunge (now easy listening) they stopped to do a quiz with two contestants over the phone (god forbid they actually play too much music).

The first questions were straight forward music/pop culture and were answered with some degree of difficulty but it was the following question that made me die a little inside.

I quote from memory “1992 was the year the cold war ended. This was between the USA and which other country?” …a fairly simple question for the 94.5 demographic which given the sound of the voices on the phones (and they were listening to a 1992 tribute) was over 18. The first girl buzzed in after some hesitation…

“Germany?”

“Um no…its an Eastern European country (he starts giving a few clues as the other rocket scientist has a free shot and is still obviously baffled)….cold war……nuclear weapons

she goes for it “England”

he was still rattling off clues …..”very cold place”

she quickly corrects herself as she thinks of somewhere colder than England (and giving her some credit she was correct about this point)

“Scotland!”

Yes folks that’s right. Eastern European nuclear powerhouse Scotland was at a stand-off with the USA for 40 something years. The presenter trying to maintain some credibility with the show decides to give the answer and move on….quickly…..rather than mock the ignorant. Now I can take stupidity with a grain of salt but the VERY NEXT QUESTION made me want to ram my car into the nearest tree out of frustration with the ‘average citizen’

“in 1992 the West Coast Eagles won the premiership. Who did they beat?”

without a pause for thought, as if by muscle memory the answer flowed from the lips

“Geelong” ……correct WCE 16.17 (113) d GEEL 12.13 (85) and Geisha part owner Peter Matera was the Norm Smith Medalist….but all I could think of was Scotland….Oh My

So as Kyle Broflovski would ask himself, what have I learned this week.
Well. Either the Perth Social Studies and Geography syllabus needs an urgent overhaul or that no one really cares about history unless it involves sport or pop culture. Hell, she probably thinks Game of Thrones is a documentary and given a television diet of Masterchef, Geordie Shore, Kardashians et al it is not hard to understand why.

Perhaps it is almost time to rename Australia “America II” as we celebrate the stupid and mock the intelligent on an ever increasing basis or maybe these girls (or women given their ages) are a blip on the radar and everything is all OK, nothing to see here people, move along.