I RECENTLY introduced a hint of levity into this column by asking people to name the man or woman they considered the most powerful person on earth and their reasons for so doing.
I received a boatload of suggestions, which varied from eminently sensible to frankly outrageous but, encouraged by your response, have prepared a general knowledge quiz, complete with suggested answers, for you to try:
(1) Given the unfounded hysteria which surrounded the national team's progress to the quarter finals of the Euro 2004, and its penalty shoot-out defeat by a superior Portugal side, do you consider English supporters to be:
(a) Eternal optimists?
(b) Suffering from the same incurable self-delusion which affects Sven Gordon Eriksson and the FA hierarchy?
(c) Utterly barmy?
(2) Why does the same FA hierarchy continue to pay the same Mr Eriksson a mind-boggling annual salary of £4m when quite clearly my 95-year-old mum could do a far better job?
(a) They can't sack him after giving him a whopping rise and declaring he is "bomb-proof" whatever the results.
(b) He's a foreigner so must be better than home-grown coaches, proven in the cauldron of the English Premiership.
(c) They are utterly barmy.
(3) Why did David Beckham, a pretty lad with flowing locks, metamorphose into a shaven-headed thug with a daft tattoo on his neck/upper back?
(a) He was trying, unsuccessfully as it proved, to intimidate the opposition by hoping to appear "hard".
(b) Victoria fancied "a bit of rough".
(c) He is utterly barmy.
(4) Why do George W Bush and Tony Blair think that handing power to an interim government in Iraq will somehow end the nightmare of car bombs, kidnapping, beheading and other assorted acts of violence?
(a) They are eternal optimists who reason that Muslims will somehow stop killing Muslims now power rests with the Iraqi people, not the Coalition.
(b) Both are approaching election challenges and in urgent need of dramatic image make-overs.
(c) They are utterly barmy.
(5) Does the United Kingdom Independence Party wish to wave goodbye to Brussels and the European Union and dynamite the Channel Tunnel because:
(a) We could be invaded by rabid French foxes, illegally entering England with the collusion of gendarmes on the other side?
(b) Its politicians suffer the same xenophobia-fuelled delusions as English football supporters; that we are better than everyone and don't need help from anyone, especially the frog-eaters?
(c) They are utterly barmy?
(6) People watch endless hours of Big Brother because:
(a) They are fascinated by "saddos" trying to bulldoze their way to fame/notoriety and, hopefully, loadsmoney from tabloids aimed at readers with the IQ of a nutmeg.
(b) They are hoping to see copulation, mass murder or both.
(c) They are utterly barmy.
Those with (c) answers are invited to join me in applying for residency in the Isle of Man. We just might be safe there.
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