What Americans know about Ireland - CNBC interview

SpaceTime

Ash.J.Williams wrote: »

"why wouldn't we" great answer!!

Reminded me of a Father Ted sketch where Father Jack was taken out of his box with the starscape painted inside.

"What's that thing there?"
"are those my feet?"

I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere.

branie2

You'd think people were up to date on current affairs

catallus

If somebody had Fujian on their passport you'd think they were from Fuji, wouldn't you?

Nope. It's a province in China.

Donkey Oaty

SpaceTime wrote: »

Maybe he was just someone's embarrassing uncle who was in looking around the studio on an open day and accidentally wandered onto set?

The younger guy and the female presenter seemed quite knowledgable, competent and a bit embarrassed!

Not familiar with the guy or the programme, but look at his CV.

To me this episode reeks of trolling by Mr Kernen. He knows damn well that Ireland has the Euro, but his golf joke fell a bit flat so he thought he had to crank it up to eleven.

SpaceTime

A good troll doesn't make himself look like a total muppet though.

Donkey Oaty

SpaceTime wrote: »

A good troll doesn't make himself look like a total muppet though.

True, he's not a great troll or even a good one.

TomoBhoy

The Backwards Man wrote: »

People in Dublin think we use sterling in Donegal so hardly surprising.

We'd bite your hand off for it but that's beside the point.

I actually know someone who changed her euro to Stirling

Duckworth_Luas

SpaceTime wrote: »

The best one I had though was in Belgium where someone put on my employment contract Citizen of the UK.
When I brought this up, she said "that's a matter of political opinion". At which point I said, yeah like the way that Flanders is actually in France? She was highly offended at that notion but didn't seem to see anything wrong with just placing the wrong country on a legal document because she was too arrogant to check or admit that she could possibly be completely wrong.

Part of Flanders is in France, ie French Flanders where Calais and Dunkirk are situated. I despair that people aren't aware of this! :mad:

SpaceTime

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

True, he's not a great troll or even a good one.

It's actually been picked up by quite a few media outlets in Ireland and Britain as well as a couple of US news sites.

It's in the Guardian and the Independent (UK)

SpaceTime

Duckworth_Luas wrote: »

Part of Flanders is in France, ie French Flanders where Calais and Dunkirk are situated. I despair that people aren't aware of this! :mad:

Yes, but not the bit that I was standing in which tends to want to declare itself as anything but French-speaking Belgian.

SpaceTime

Maybe he could do an in-depth piece with the Curry My Yogurt man in Northern Ireland?
They seem to be on the same level when it comes to trolling.

Donkey Oaty

SpaceTime wrote: »

It's actually been picked up by quite a few media outlets in Ireland and Britain as well as a couple of US news sites.

It's in the Guardian and the Independent (UK)

And Twitter is buzzing away, so he got his audience all right.

But I still think he was expecting one of the anchors to say "Don't mind him, he's just pulling your leg" or something, rather than get the tumbleweed response - and a US interviewee would presumably know that he had serious form for trolling, which the IDA guy clearly didn't.

Or have I turned into Lord Denning with an appalling vista analysis?:eek:

Molester Stallone II

catallus wrote: »

If somebody had Fujian on their passport you'd think they were from Fuji, wouldn't you?

Nope. It's a province in China.

There is no country called Fuji so not sure what your point is

FouxDaFaFa

I was half-expecting the American guy to slowly disappear off-camera, being pulled away by the hook reserved for disappointing stage performers.

Squawkbox is a huge show, I'm really surprised one of their presenters was so under-prepared. He was obviously going for a bit of light jokey "banter" but he seemed completely unaware that it was backfiring.

That female presenter looked like she was dying a little inside.

catallus

Molester Stallone II wrote: »

There is no country called Fuji so not sure what your point is

Well I know that now, don't I??

Pumpkinseeds

dark crystal wrote: »

That guy should have just shut up as soon as he realised what an idiot he was making of himself, but the clueless moron just kept going on and on about it.

How do people that stupid get these jobs? I would have thought a basic knowledge of countries and their currencies would have been a fundemental requirement in securing the role as anchor on a financially based news show.

At a guess, I'd say a mixture of nepotism and having gone to the right Ivy League college.

Donkey Oaty

I've just found this on YouTube - it's the previous IDA man on that Squawk Box programme earlier this year (different host).

Something rather unexpected happens at around 0.24.

kylith

catallus wrote: »

If somebody had Fujian on their passport you'd think they were from Fuji, wouldn't you?

Nope. It's a province in China.

Molester Stallone II wrote: »

There is no country called Fuji so not sure what your point is

I think he meant Fiji.

I also can't find anywhere in China called Fuji, so it's also possible that he actually meant Japan on that, unless he actually meant Fujian Province in China.

Mr. CooL ICE

Basque. That's something you do in the sun, right?

WesternZulu

One of my English friends totally dismissed me once I told him Ireland wasn't part of the UK. He was adamant that it was!!

He would not believe that Ireland had its own prime minister and president.
Kept telling me that his passport said 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland'. He kept asking me was I sure...
I told him to run upstairs and have a look at his passport, that he'd forgotten the 'Northern' bit ahead of Ireland. He returned rather sheepishly once he realised he was wrong!

This was despite the fact he'd been to Ireland, and studied geography as his undergrad!!!! Don't underestimate ignorance.

I think a lot of people from larger countries like the UK and US have a more insular world view; whereas the opposite is the case in smaller nations.

josip

In Denver years ago and when a (young) person in a bar heard we were on holidays from Ireland...
"Did you guys drive here?"

josip

Nicolas Cage wrote: »

Basque. That's something you do in the sun, right?

Only if you're a shark

Dyr

The yank is just playing with him at the end because he has some dead time

Whats more depressing, is that Shanahan is such a monumental bull****ter

lertsnim

anncoates wrote: »

Didn't bother watching the video

You're opinion isn't worth a **** so as your self depreciating nonsense has absolutely nothing to do with the video.

SeanW

The Backwards Man wrote: »

People in Dublin think we use sterling in Donegal so hardly surprising.

But don't ye all do your shopping in Nordieland? :rolleyes:

catallus

Aye. With Nordie coins and all.

truedoom

i'm surprised they didn't have to run subtitles or something

**EDIT

just watched the rest of it.

holy **** that lad on the right. What a spa!

SpaceTime

Bambi wrote: »

The yank is just playing with him at the end because he has some dead time

Whats more depressing, is that Shanahan is such a monumental bull****ter

Don't think that's true really. He hardly got a word in. I'm not sure why they bothered to invite someone then just wisecrack all over him and ask questions that provide viewers with zero insight.

Very, very poor journalism (if you could even call it that.)

What did viewers learn ? That the anchor disapproves of Ireland being in the Euro and played golf in Scotland but had no idea where that was...

Waste of time of a 'news' piece ... You'd get more insightful interviewing on The Den.

TheBeardedLady

CelticRambler wrote: »

My son was sitting beside a French lad on his first flight to Ireland (Dublin ) back in September. The lad was really excited about getting away to somewhere foreign (the French don't get out much) and spending strange money. "Huh? We use the Euro in Ireland, same as in France" said my son. The French lad was shocked - he had a wallet full of sterling, sold to him by his local bank after he'd asked what currency he'd need.

I think I told this story before on here but I was flying home from Madrid (Spain....Spain) and there was a couple in front of me discussing in Spanish whether they'd converted enough sterling for the bus into Dublin. :eek: I was torn between telling them and making them feel stupid for fear of not being able to hide my condescending tone and not telling them because they deserved whatever came to them for being so stupid. I chose the latter.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Molester Stallone II wrote: »

But nobody in Ireland claims to be descended from the high kings of sierra leone, with 80% of Americans claiming to have come from.the auld sod, perhaps they should get off their fat asses and look at a map, or at least look at a wiki page ffs

There's no way 80% of modern day Americans have Irish roots. That's over 250 million people.

mikemac1

Ah we all make mistakes

There were terrorist shootings a few years back in Mumbai. Where is Mumbai, never heard of the place Later found it, we called that Bombay when I was in school! Sure your local pub has Bombay gin

I believe Burma changed their name too. I saw a football result for Republic of China, googled that and saw Taiwan

ireland.man

I think the point is that they're meant to know more than the average person on the street, more than even ordinary political pundits. They're presenting a market news and discussion programme and invite a guest on to discuss some complex economic issues relating to that person's country.... but didn't research what the currency was there, what exactly was the status of the country and whether it was in Britain or not, etc.

It's not that they didn't know this stuff already, it's that they didn't feel it necessary to research before having such a guest on. That boggles my mind and tells me what level of quality the media over there is happy with.

Egginacup

CelticRambler wrote: »

My son was sitting beside a French lad on his first flight to Ireland (Dublin ) back in September. The lad was really excited about getting away to somewhere foreign (the French don't get out much) and spending strange money. "Huh? We use the Euro in Ireland, same as in France" said my son. The French lad was shocked - he had a wallet full of sterling, sold to him by his local bank after he'd asked what currency he'd need.

Well if the kid told the banker
"Je vais a la Royaume Unie" then it was his fault and not the bank clerk.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

mikemac1 wrote: »

Ah we all make mistakes

There were terrorist shootings a few years back in Mumbai. Where is Mumbai, never heard of the place Later found it, we called that Bombay when I was in school! Sure your local pub has Bombay gin

I believe Burma changed their name too. I saw a football result for Republic of China, googled that and saw Taiwan

Republic of China wasn't a name change though, it's always been officially known as that.

fryup

now you know how noraid were so successful in the US....pure ignorance

Banjoxed

Thargor wrote: »

So? I remember meeting someone who thought Athlone was a county once, that person still wouldn't be stupid enough to think the #1 superpower on the planet was the same country as Canada, you made a ridiculous claim about Irish people and have been backtracking and throwing out strawman arguments for 2 pages now and I really couldn't be bothered talking about it anymore.

"County Killarney, that's another thing the Brits took from us!"

- Neil Tobin playing an Irish American on an RTE show from the Seventies called "Time now, Mr T"

Harry Palmr

Hilarious! Americans - pigs are smarter.

Aidric

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Americans - pigs are smarter.

:rolleyes: Nothing like a nonsense generalisation to counter an argument.

The host was badly exposed here. Completely unprofessional and he seemed to have taken on a belligerent attitude at the end of the interview.

oppenheimer1

anncoates wrote: »

Didn't bother watching the video but we're a very small country with no genuine global significance yet we have a relatively large 'footprint' based on a pimped-out, slightly cartoon image of our culture and history and a disproportionate self-regard for ourselves as a nation so this kind of stuff is always slightly inevitable.

Get over it.

If you're interviewing someone, you research the topics you're going to talk about. You also show the person some respect.

mikom

Whammy!

PizzamanIRL

What do you expect from a show called "Squawk Box"?

naughtysmurf

josip wrote: »

In Denver years ago and when a (young) person in a bar heard we were on holidays from Ireland...
"Did you guys drive here?"

Maybe he thought you were from Ireland Indiana & made the 15hr21min drive to vacation in Denver, seems reasonable to me

c_man

I found it a mixed bag over there when it came to people's knowledge on Ireland (I didn't deliberately bring it up!) Some were pretty well up on things, like knowing about the Galway races... And one in particular on the other side of the scale was a receptionist at a hotel in Washington DC, kept demanding my social security number (and those of 5 of my friends), didn't accept that Ireland was a separate country and thus we didn't have one. Like she seemed genuinely confused the more the talk went on.

DuMorph

I think the host was just a lazy sod who couldn't be bothered researching for the interview. He didn't seem to understand the basis for his very first question.

Sheldons Brain

Very unprofessional. You'd expect someone involved in a business show to have some outline knowledge of things in any case, and to do a bit of research for each show, Wikipedia would have done. But you'd also expect someone to have enough pride in their own work not to make a complete bollix of themselves on live TV, a half decent interviewer would have kept things on course.

cofy

From that footage I thought that one of the three presenters had absolutely no interest whatsoever in discussing economic policies whatsoever with Martin Shanahan, he was very obviously ignoring the conversation and only engaged in the discussion to derail it.

IMO Joe Kernan is a very ignorant, arrogant man. He is well deserving of the saying "If he had only half a brain he would be twice as intelligent."


I thought that Martin Shanahan handled the situation excellently.

Richard

mikemac1 wrote: »

Ah we all make mistakes

There were terrorist shootings a few years back in Mumbai. Where is Mumbai, never heard of the place Later found it, we called that Bombay when I was in school! Sure your local pub has Bombay gin

I believe Burma changed their name too. I saw a football result for Republic of China, googled that and saw Taiwan

I think Mumbai is a closer approximation to the original language than Bombay is, although Bomay is still used quite a lot by Indians speaking English. Kolkata/Calcutta is similar, and of course China has Peking/Beijing.

I once met an American in Germany who gave a big "Wow" as if I'd descended from Mars when I told her I was from Northern Ireland. Her friend later asked "Do you use Deutsch Marks in Ireland?"

SpaceTime

Donkey Oaty wrote: »

I've just found this on YouTube - it's the previous IDA man on that Squawk Box programme earlier this year (different host).

Something rather unexpected happens at around 0.24.

If you did that on BBC News you'd most likely be picking up your P45. That's actually mocking the guest's accent and ethnicity. Some people would describe it as racism of sorts.

Can you imagine a presenter mocking the accent of say a Chinese guest and playing stereotypical Chinese music?

Krusty the Clown's sketches spring to mind.

Or Alan Partridge ... Absolutely cringe inducing stuff.

It's incredibly immature at the very least and looks and sounds like unsophisticated "let's all laugh at the foreigner with the silly accent" 1950s humour.

About as funny as a car crash.

wow sierra

anncoates wrote: »

Didn't bother watching the video but we're a very small country with no genuine global significance yet we have a relatively large 'footprint' based on a pimped-out, slightly cartoon image of our culture and history and a disproportionate self-regard for ourselves as a nation so this kind of stuff is always slightly inevitable.

Get over it.

The point isn't just that he didn't know - it was the way he kept arguing with Shanahan as if Shanahan was wrong and then said "you guys need to get it together over there" and then "I wouldn't be in the Euro". Arrogant prat.

SpaceTime

wow sierra wrote: »

The point isn't just that he didn't know - it was the way he kept arguing with Shanahan as if Shanahan was wrong and then said "you guys need to get it together over there" and then "I wouldn't be in the Euro". Arrogant prat.

Not to me mention that as the head of a state agency, he can't exactly engage in a discussion about fundamental policy issues like Euro membership.

It's like correcting how someone pronounced their own name.

Utterly daft and totally arrogant nonsense.