Poll Tax
‘NEVER mind all the exams they have to do, the real reason kids don’t have time to do their schoolwork these days is the number of surveys they are expected to answer.
| Making Robert Kilroy Silk’s breakfast |
An Anorak survey has discovered that the average British youth will have answered 126 separate surveys by the time they reach adulthood.
They will have been asked questions on their sex lives, their eating habits, which celebrities they most admire, which they most despise, what colour they most identify with etc.
And all with the same intention – to prove that kids today are all thicker than a McDonalds milkshake and that the world is going to hell.
If adults stopped asking children bloody stupid questions, then perhaps the kids would have the time to learn the answers to their bloody stupid questions.
Anyway, today’s plethora of polls includes one in the Independent that suggests that a third of primary school children think that oranges are grown in Britain.
Almost half believe that margarine comes from cows and a quarter assume bread is made from potatoes or rice.
This prompts a predictable response from the National Farmers’ Union, which commissioned the poll.
”It’s sad that so many children don’t fully understand the origin of their food,” says campaigns manager Ben Wilson. ”They need a basic understanding of where food comes from.”
Tesco, Sainsbury or Asda…
And such is our fetish for surveys that, even when you hit 18, you can still expect to be stopped on the street every 12 yards on average and asked your opinion on something or other.
A BBC poll, for instance, has discovered that six out of ten people under the age of 35 have never heard of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp and scene of the biggest mass murder ever recorded.
As a result, the Guardian says, BBC2 will broadcast a documentary series to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day next year to show viewers how the concentration camp operated.
While we’re about it, it might also like to commission a separate poll to discover how many people know who ”invented” the concentration camp.
Was it A) The Nazis, B) The Soviets or C) The British? Answers on the back of your school homework to the usual address.’
Posted: 3rd, December 2004 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
