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It is a perverse truth of our technological age that growing up with instant access to knowledge has made teenagers steadfast in their ignorance of anything outside their virtual communities.

A recent poll in the UK uncovered some disturbing facts. A worrying 53% of British teenagers believe Richard the Lionheart was real. Is this because Sean Connery's deus-ex-machina appearance in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' was so authentic a portrayal of armorial masculinity that it demanded belief? Is any part of his story credible? The warrior king, having been handed England on a plate, spends his best years fighting legendary battles with Saladin, building castles, and being the hostage of exotic princelings, without seeing the need to learn English; England bleeds itself dry to pay the ingrate's ransom and he promptly gets himself killed by an arrow of poetic justice while taunting the defenders of a besieged castle. This is patently a fairy tale.

An almost sacrilegious 35% believe King Arthur never existed. He is the founding father of Albion, the Once and Future King, the hero who wielded Excalibur and preserved some vestige of Roman civilisation from the depredations of Saxon marauders. The fact that the Dark Ages took a hefty toll on documentary records doesn't mean we should so lightly forget our saint, founder and protector. Perhaps this is the hour of our great need and his return is imminent. Maybe the movie industry is again partly to blame for the confusion. They always feel compelled to put the Knights of the Round Table in the kind of plate armour that wasn't seen until the 12th century.

A perhaps forgivable 42% believe Sherlock Holmes only existed in print. The cause for confusion is that Holmes' life and case histories were dramatised by Arthur Conan Doyle, a man known for his imaginative if overwrought novels. Holmes shied away from publicity, even leaving 221B Baker Street when his chronicles became popular and maintaining he'd never lived there. Consequently, the world's greatest detective, and the inspiration for the revolutionary police training manual, Lestrade's Guide To Crime Scene Integrity & The Trusty Route To The Gallows', lives only in fiction and clich.

A massive 80% of those questioned think Winston Churchill was a flesh and blood historical figure. They seriously believe that a portly, cigar-chewing eccentric in a bowler hat with a penchant for vulgar hand gestures led our nation through the greatest crisis in its long history. Don't

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