CBC TV news have just described Istanbul as the capital city....

Did the Turks get bored with Ankara?

Who wouldn't? I've been to Ankara. I got bored.

The capital of Australia is?
The capital of Brazil is?
The capital of Germany is/was?
The capital of Canada is?
The capital of The Netherlands is?

Many people would get those questions wrong.

OK, without googling

Canberra
Brasilia
Bonn
Ottawa
Utrecht?

pointless comment to make post work

Den Hague, innit?

Turns out that there was no need to stress that, was there

<Pedant Hat on>

Mixing languages there, dbd. The Hague in English, or Den Haag in Dutch.

<Pedant Hat off>

Noted. I smite myself.

and the point of this thread is......

ooo you,

The point, you want a point? Try this one-


Is it reasonable to expect a national news broadcast to get their facts right?

I've spotted a couple of "facts" in that bastion of journalistic integrity "The Times" that were clearly wrong recently.

Did you know that hair model, "actor" and French former footballer David Ginola, was , according to the times, the voice of Jacques the shrimp in "Finding Nemo"? No?, neither did he, because he wasnt!

Kids today eh!

Gosh, let me see. Expecting someone to know the capital city of a country, and expecting someone to know which actor was a voice in Nemo. I can see international ramifications for both, but one seems slightlyl more important than the other. The nemo question could fail you in a pub quiz.

Country, dogs, going.

I think it is. Most of the govermentalising gets done out of Amsterdam, though. Utrecht doesn't figure. That's OK. I don't think Batty is all that much into cigars.

I liked Utrecht though I had a unfortunate experience there trying to explain that I wanted to purchase something a man doesn't need to a woman who didn't speak English.

Hand signals?

<shudders>