LONDON (TIP): British politicians love Dracula but Frankenstein has ended up becoming more popular.
Mickey Mouse isn’t far behind or for that matter Sherlock Holmes or James Bond.
Their obsession with the word “sex” is telling but it is William Shakespeare who is overall the clear favourite.
For the first time ever, linguists and historians in Britain have worked together to compile all the Westminster parliamentary speeches made in the House of Commons from 1803-2005 and put them online for the world to have free access to it. The website gives access to 7.6 million speeches and 1.6 billion words and includes some of the most memorable moments from British political history. It includes all the greats: Sir Winston Churchill’s many wartime addresses to parliament; Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech attacking Margaret Thatcher and Dennis Healey’s famous riposte to Geoffrey Howe’s verbal assault, likening it to “being savaged by a dead sheep”. James Bond appears 132 times in parliament, starting in 1962, twice as often as Dracula at 66. Sex gets 23,000 mentions and is twice as popular as cigarettes at 10,556.
(Source: TNN)