Why England Should Stop Celebrating Stupidity!

England is the country of Shakespeare, but today our media and politics has become something that celebrates the stupid, boring and obsession with money (think of silly quiz shows). It’s lazy cheap TV for the masses.

Only 20 years or so after we would sit down to Inspector Morse or Miss Marple. Intelligent comedy (Dave Allen, Les Dawson) has been replaced by nasty talentless stand-ups, and in-depth interviews (Parkinson, Walden) replaced by what Trump has last said on social media.

A Short History of Stupidity is not a stupid book at all. In fact, sadly, it’s a book whose time has come. The author (like many of us) are wondering how we got into this state. We have politicians claiming to know more than climate scientists, top-rated TV shows that focus on bullying and deception, and people ‘famous for doing nothing’.

Why the author asks, is the world entranced by the ‘five horsemen of the stupid apocalypse’:

Donald Trump
Elon Musk
Vladimir Putin
Nigel Farage
Boris Johnson

This book is funny at times, quoting a quiz contestant who when asked the first name of Gandhi, replied ‘Goosey’). But the author is careful not to confuse ignorance with stupidity. It does not sneer at people who don’t have good intellect, rather it’s a fight against stupid media and politics.

Stuart Jeffries is a writer and journalist, who for many years worked for the Guardian newspaper as its Friday Review editor and Paris correspondent. He now works freelance for this and other publications (including the Financial Times and London Review of Books).

When you are dead, you do not know you are dead. The same is true when you are stupid. Anon

How stupid soundbites can cause real harm

There are no doubt serious issues, but media stupid soundbites can be read by people (who perhaps don’t check the facts) and can result in real harm.

Millions of people have been sucked into dangerous and incorrect rhetoric being pumped out of right-wing commentators’ mouths about migrants being given rooms at the Ritz, PlayStations, jacuzzis and hugs on arrival. Amy Kean

Amy goes onto say that this rhetoric no doubt contributed to some people setting fire to hotels with migrants, in the aftermath of the terribly tragic murder of three young girls in Southport, Merseyside.

A few years back, one medical doctor’s home was attacked by self-styled vigilantes, who had confused her professional title with the word paedophile.

What on earth has happened to Mastermind?

As a child, you no doubt remembered celebrating with your (perhaps quite intelligent) parents, if any of you managed to get one or two answers right in the general knowledge part of TV show Mastermind (there was no chance for the specialised subjects!)

This wasn’t snobbery (one of the best-ever winners was a London tube driver).

But in December 2025, the BBC was blasted (and received several complaints) for the dumbed-down Celebrity Mastermind. Even the contestant paused (no doubt dumbfounded if this was a real question, when asked ‘What pet goes ‘woof-woof?’)

Former presenter Magnus Magnusson came to Scotland from Iceland as a baby, but still spent many years translating Norse books from Icelandic, and his daughter Sally writes Norse tales set on the Isles of Orkney. Quite what he would have made of the present questions is not known, but could be guessed:

1980s Mastermind general knowledge question: