Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Are You Smarter than a 10 Year Old?

I've deliberately avoided watching this show for a while, knowing it would be drivel from the title. But. My wife finds it amusing to watch idiots be idiots, and sat me down to watch an episode with her on the weekend. I made it almost 5 minutes into the show before I had to change the channel in rage. It took me almost 15 minutes to calm down enough to see what I was watching.

Why? As if it's not enough that the format itself is tedious and infantile, and that the contestants seem to be hand-picked for their ability to make a mountain out of a shitpile, they also let incorrect answers through as correct!

5 + 3 x 0 = ?

5. Not a moment's hesitation on my part. The contestant gets 15. Not really surprising; she's a 30-something hairdresser, and has a receptionist to count the takings each day. The child gets 0. An understandable mistake, but a mistake nonetheless, right? Wrong!

"You should have trusted the 10-year-old" Noel simpers. "She's right."

WHAT. THE. FUCK?!

And the maths education of children across the nation takes a hit as they gleefully inform their teachers over the subsequent years that all the fundamental rules of arithmetic are subordinate to the magic phrase, "Anything multiplied by zero is zero."

*click*

Am I smarter than a 10 year old? Apparently. And definitely Noel Edmond. And his adult producers too. And so are you!

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