Losing our sense of reality

View GalleryARE we leaving school a nation of know-nothings, or are TV quiz shows frazzling our brains? According to a new survey, more than one in five people believe Winston Churchill never existed and more than half believe Sherlock Holmes was a real detective.

If this is part of a trend, we could arrive at a state of affairs where our understanding of real characters and mythical ones is so jumbled that history and culture cease to have meaning. At this rate, a majority of us will soon come to believe that Hitler was a trial run for the Frankenstein horror movies and that Inspector Clouseau really was the man in charge of French security.

And why stop at flesh and blood characters? So cold has it been across most of Scotland in the past week that Jack Frost is, of course, permanently stationed in the Highlands. Tam O'Shanter is the real-life ambassador for VisitScotland and Dr Who is in charge of genetic engineering at Roslin. How much better life might be if Tony Blair was really a work of Peter Mandelson fiction or that Mr and Mrs Sarkozy were pure inventions of the French press.

And there is a disconcertingly large expanse in which half-real, half-mythological creatures enjoy the right to roam. Tommy Sheridan: fact or fantasy? Britney Spears: real life or media grotesque? Loch Ness monster: fact or fiction? Truth and legend are often not so easily disentangled.