Over the last few days I've been watching this game show on Catalan TV in which minor local TV celebrities, like a couple of sports reporters, a couple of actresses, and the like answer questions, most of which are fairly easy but a few of which are challenging. I was surprised how many questions related to the US the contestants blew, and these people are supposed to be at least media-savvy. One of them, Rosa Andreu, a stage actress and one-time talk-show hostess, was pretty sharp and obviously educated and cultured--and she was smart enough to make educated guesses when she wasn't able to think of the answer. The rest of them had rather low wattage, if you know what I mean.

• They didn't know that New England was a US region--they guessed Canada.
• They didn't know the Grand Canyon was in the US--they guessed Mexico.
• " " " that Hillary Clinton is senator from New York--they had no guess.
• When asked "What's George W. Bush's middle name, William or Walker?" they guessed "William."
• They didn't know that Coppola directed "Apocalypse Now" or that Woody Allen directed "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex..."
• Didn't know that F. Scott Fitzgerald was American--they guessed Irish.
• They guessed that the Arkansas River was in Brazil.
• They didn't know that the longest land frontier is between the US and Canada--they guessed Russia and China.
• They didn't know that the MOMA is in New York.
• They didn't know that Omaha is in the US.

The only ones they got right were that Brooklyn is a neighborhood (actually a borough) in New York and that the secretary of defense who recently resigned is Donald Rumsfeld.