Great Britons?

The BBC have been running a series called Great Britons, with the aim of choosing the greatest Briton of all time. The original 100 names, chosen by 30,000 of the great British public, had some bizarre choices and some noteable omissions. There were far too many flavour-of-the-month celebrities like Robbie Williams, David Beckham, and, for Cthulhu's sake, Boy George(!), which goes to show the shallowness of a lot of people's educations. (Yes I know Andrew Ian Dodge thought Aleister Crowley, possibly the wierdest choice, was a valid inclusion, which perhaps explains why some people think he's 'creepy'!)

The BBC whittled this down to a shortlist of 10, each of whom were given a program in which their champion discussed their merits. The ten finalists were:

Winston Churchill
Isambad Kingdom Brunel
Princess Diana
Isaac Newton
Charles Darwin
John Lennon
William Shakespeare
Queen Elizabeth I
Horatio Nelson
Oliver Cromwell

We'd lost most of the stupid ones, but we still had the Bimbo of Wales, championed by newspaper editor Rosie Boycott. Some people are supposed to have said they would leave the country if she won. Fortunately for the nation's honour, voters went for Winston Churchill.

After the program my brother-in-law and I speculated as to the 10 greatest of other nations, in the same spirit as the 10 Brits (including some Diana-alikes) - these are some of the suggestions we came up with.

America

George Washington
Abraham Lincoln
Henry Ford
Walt Disney
Marilyn Monroe (taking the Diana spot?)
Elvis Presley (taking the Lennon spot?)

France

Napoleon
Charlemagne
Charles de Gaulle
Jeanne D'Arc

Italy

Julius Caesar
Leonardo de Vinci
Verdi
Michaelangelo
Machiavelli

Germany

Martin Luther
Albert Einstein
J S Bach

American, French, Italian or German readers are invited to complete their country's lists, and/or throw out any of our suggestions you feel insulting or stupid. If you come from another country entirely you will have to come up with all ten on your own, and I invite you to do so.

Posted by TimHall at November 26, 2002 08:44 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Is the Great Briton series of videos available on DVD? If so, is it available for purchase on-line?

Posted by: Ron on August 14, 2005 01:50 PM


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