One of our more popular pages is this one, a transcript of a short film clip in which a reporter asked American passers-by their views about the War on Terror.
Now the same reporter has been asking ordinary Americans in the street some questions of a more general nature, and once again we've watched the film and transcribed their answers. So … this is what the average American knows …
Reporter: "Kofi Annan is a drink. True or false?"
Passer-by: "Coffee's a drink"
Reporter: "Who's Tony Blair?"
Passer-by: "I don' even know"
Reporter: "Can you guess?"
Passer-by: "Tony Blair is an actor"
Another passer-by: "Linda Blair's brother?"
Reporter: "Which countries are in the Axis of Evil?"
Passer-by: "Erm … I know Germany's one of 'em, I'm not sure …"
Another passer-by: "Okay, California, New York, Florida, Misisippi …"
Third passer-by: "Jerusalem?"
Reporter: "There's more than one"
Third passer-by: "I think all of them"
Fourth passer-by: "I'm a bit mixed up about the Palestinians and the Israels, okay? Which one of 'em's throwin' the rocks?"
Fifth passer-by: "I can't think of the name of the other one, the one with the turban thing. I call 'em a diaper-head, really"
Reporter: "What is a mosque?"
Passer-by: "Don't have any idea"
Reporter: "You wanna guess?"
Passer-by: "An animal"
Another passer-by: "I have no intelligent guess"
Reporter: "How many kidneys does a person have?"
Passer-by: "One"
Reporter: "What is collateral damage?"
Passer-by: "Well they just made a film about it, but that's definitely not what it is. Probably just what the movie's about, but not necessarily related to the movie, you know what I mean?"
Reporter: "How many world wars have there been?"
Passer-by: "Three"
Reporter: "Which state does KFC come from?"
Passer-by: "I don' know, I really don' know"
Reporter: "Okay, do you know what KFC stands for?"
Passer-by: "Kentucky Fried Chicken, right?"
Reporter: "Star Wars is based on a true story, true or false?"
Passer-by: "True"
Reporter: "What are Hiroshima and Nagasaki famous for?"
Passer-by: "Err …. Sumo wrestling, or whatever?"
Reporter: "Where is the West Bank?"
Passer-by: "On the East Coast, probably"
Another passer-by: "Err, I think somewhere in New York?"
Reporter: "How many Eiffel Towers are there in Paris?"
Passer-by: "I'd say about ten"
Reporter: "What is Al Qaida?"
Passer-by: "Al Qaida is a group, er, a suicide group in Israel, er, they do these, er, they do suicide bombs. And the president of it is Yasser Arafat. Everybody knows that"
Another passer-by: "Al Qaida is a wing of the Masonic Order"
Reporter: "Where was the Berlin Wall?"
Passer-by: (no answer)
Reporter: "What is the main religion of Israel?"
Passer-by: "Muslim?"
Reporter: "The language they speak in Latin America is Latin. True or false?"
Passer-by: "The what?"
The GOS says: If I had a case, I think I'd rest it at this point …
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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