Reality and fiction in the modern world.

You may recall the post I wrote a while back about Britons not knowing Winston Churchill was a real historical figure. That post came to mind on viewing the search terms people used to get to my site, in recent days.

Believe it or not, many people, primarily based in America, have arrived on my site with the terms: "August Rush, true story". That stilled me. It is an exact parallel to the UK situation of tv viewers not being able to distinguish fact from fiction. Clearly, the phenomenon is not restricted to the UK but is, at the very least, echoed in the United States, as well.

It is sobering to realize that there are people who cannot spot a fictional story when they see or hear of one. August Rush is fictional in the most obvious of manners: it is a cliche ridden, coincidence filled, compilation of other people's films and books. The plot is so unlikely that I doubt whether even the author was able to suspend disbelief while writing it. Yet, despite this, almost all of the searches that used the term "August Rush" also used "True story", to get to my page on the film.

So, Britons can now relax. No longer need they feel embarrassed at being unable to distinguish fiction from reality: for Americans can't do it, either.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)