Paul O'Grady and his dogs

Does Sam Woollaston get paid for his reviews in the Guardian?

This one is so odd and mean-spirited that I wonder if he wrote it as some kind of therapeutic release (perhaps he has a phobia towards dogs, or indeed a phobia towards Paul O'Grady, or just possibly a phobia towards Chinese people?):  http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2013/may/10/paul-ogrady-love-of-dogs?CMP=twt_gu

This is just a harmless programme about dogs for heaven's sake.  It about a comedian and his love for dogs.  It features gentle humour, gentle anthropomorphism, gushing sentimentality.

Paul O'Grady and his dogs are not the enemy!

There is so much wrong with rubbish TV that there is an absolute need for a high-minded high-culture reviewer to work through all the dross programmes channel by channel, laying waste to vulgarity and spitefulness and stupidity, harrowing the dishonest and third rate, and furiously driving all before them like Queen Maeve on the great cattle raid of Cooley.

Of course I know Maeve ultimately failed, just as any attempt to curb trashy TV will fail, but someone, somewhere ought to be making an attempt however tokan - and I admire Maeve for the fury she showed, even when that fury got her nowhere and was ultimately self-defeating.

That furious TV reviewer will not be Sam Woollaston.

So where will a champion arise, if not the Guardian?

The Independent possibly, but the quality of the Independent is not consistent.

The Daily Telegraph certainly, but the Telegraph cannot fight on all fronts and is arguably trying to do too much already.

The Times?  No chance.  The Times will not turn against Sky, however much their reviewers might want to.

So we are back to the Guardian, waiting for them to get their act together.

Westminster Abbey

I agree with Lucy Mangan that last night's documentary on BBC2 (first in a series of three) was exceptionally well-made, although I think she may have missed the point about charity - the Church of England is not just about social work and Anglican institutions cannot be reduced down to materialist arguments (the ointment could have been sold and the money given to the poor etc).

What is genuinely interesting is that Westminster Abbey is an institution that has not been properly analysed and assessed yet.  That it is an important institution and a cornerstone of the Establishment is indisputable.  That it both exercises and confers power is beyond doubt.  That it contains within itself many smaller institutions is fascinating.  How it all fits together and works is what I am hoping this series will reveal.  What I am convinced of is that Westminster Abbey enshrines (perhaps literally) the soft power that controls national identity, national memory, national mission.

http://afroml.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/westminster-abbey.html

Sam Wollaston said that The Thick of It was not very funny this time round

In the Guardian today TV critic Sam Wollaston said that The Thick of It was not very funny this time round (it's a new series).

Although I thought The Thick of It was funny I have to agree that there was something missing.

In part I think it is because attention has shifted from Labour in power to the Coalition in power.

On the whole I agree with the theory that we laugh at things we are secretly (or perhaps not so secretly) afraid of.  Laughter is a form of hysteria.  I know this is a controversial theory, but it makes sense to me.

Therefore we have to conclude that the general population is not all that afraid of the Conservatives.  They are not scary in the same way that Alastair Campbell was scary, or Harriet Harman was intimidating, or Gordon Brown gave off the impression of a violent bully barely in control of himself.  You can test this for yourself by imagining Grant Shapps and Peter Mandelson side by side - which one would you feel most afraid of?

If you read the Twitter microblog of Owen Jones (Independent journalist and left-wing activist) you see lefties trying to outdo each other in their proclaimed hatred of "the Tories".  But sooner or later they get bored with that and start to berate "Progress" and "Blairites" and aim digital kicks at Tony McNulty.  Eventually they turn on Owen Jones himself and condemn him as a counter-revolutionary and a running dog lackey of the imperialists.

In terms of internecine feuding, bitter antagonisms, and dramatic no-holds-barred in-fighting Labour has all the drama and the Conservatives are nowhere.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/sep/09/the-thick-of-it-review

Young, Bright and on the Right directed by Alisa Pomeroy

When I noticed the documentary Young, Bright and on the Right directed by Alisa Pomeroy had been mentioned as a Guardian Pick of the Day I thought that it might be worth looking at.  Not because the Guardian's Guide is a reliable arbiter of what to watch on television (it is anything but that).  Mainly because I suspected they might have an agenda in drawing attention to this programme.

Predictably the documentary revealed two foppish students with highly exaggerated world views.  It would be hard to imagine any more stereotypical portrayal of Conservative students in a production that seemed solely designed to provoke anti-Conservative prejudices.  It was a 2012 equivalent of Jude Süss (and yes, I do know Alisa Pomeroy is Jewish - it is because she is Jewish that she should know better than to produce work in a Veit Harlan style, especially as she has previously targeted other examples of society's "freaks" and "weirdos" in her documentaries).

Equally predictably the documentary was seized upon by left-wing commentators.

Nick Cohen, on his Twitter microblog, predicted that the documentary would affect the Conservative vote in marginal constituencies, with the implication that it would swing the next election.  On the face of it this is a very silly remark.  I do not know the audience figures for Young, Bright and on the Right but I would doubt that they were so large they would have an electoral effect.  But Nick Cohen's Tweet does reveal a level of wish-fulfilment bordering on desperation.  Is the Labour party so bereft of ideas that the only way they can win is through negative campaigning about their "toff" opponents?  If that is the case then there is little hope for the Left.

Above:  part of Sam Wollaston's review in today's Guardian.

Sam Wollaston devoted a page (a whole page) to the documentary in today's Guardian, drawing attention to the many ways in which the subjects of the documentary damned themselves.  For instance, one of the students says "port" repeatedly (but you do not hear whether he has been prompted to say port - my guess is that he was being urged on by the film-makers).  One of the students is supposed to have manipulated the media - except that the media seemed to be manipulating him.

I'm not a fan of Oxbridge.  And I don't think teenagers are particularly worth much attention.  But I felt sorry for these two guys obviously being set-up by an exploitative production and then being devoured by a slaverous commentariat. 

The reason these two individuals (both in their way from broken homes, and both having had a hard upbringing) have "an unhealthy interest in power" is probably because they feel personally so powerless.  Anyone from a working-class background will immediately empathise with that feeling.  And who can blame them for wanting to join the elite so that they can assume power and crush the people who previously tormented them.

Isn't that what Margaret Thatcher did?


https://twitter.com/NickCohen4
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/aug/09/young-bright-and-on-the-right

The Great Estate: the rise and fall of the council house

Yesterday I watched The Great Estate, the rise and fall of the council estate on BBC 4. It was a documentary by Michael Collins about social housing over the last hundred years. It was a fascinating exploration of the way communities function, how architecture can create identity, and the way in which publicly-owned resources have been usurped by the political class (first the Left, which rigged the selection criteria; then by the Right which sold the assets off).

Everything started to go downhill with the 1977 change to the Housing Act.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0109dvs

Above: Recently I had a look round the Brunswick Estate near Russell Square. Modelled (loosely) on the Ziggurat of Ur, the cascading effect is very attractive. Originally the estate was intended to stretch as far as the Euston Road.

Above: The rectangular design encloses a shopping plaza that seems bustling and full of life. Upmarket supermarket Waitrose, a medical centre, a cinema etc. Everything you could want seems to be here.

As well as a trendy smoothie bar (one of the best in London) the central plaza includes a Starbucks and a branch of Patisserie Valerie.

Above: Just nearby is the Lord Cornwallis pub, which has open fires in winter.

Above: to one side of the centre is the beautiful park Brunswick Square, and beyond are sports facilities.

Above: immediately adjacent to the estate is the Foundling Gallery, one of the finest art collections in London.

And yet despite all the facilities and the distinctive architecture and the convenient setting the Brunswick estate has struggled to establish itself. The flats are supposed to be pokey, and riddled with leaks. At one point the centre became a "concrete canyon" with most of the shops boarded up. Only after an intensive refurbishment has a sort-of renaissance been achieved. This has been accompanied by dubious social cleansing of about a quarter of the social housing units, the council tenants being replaced by designers and knowledge-workers. And you still get a feel that the area could regress.

I suppose my point is that if somewhere like the Brunswick can falter, what hope is there for places like the Heygate Estate? Why can't the architects simply give people what they want? Individual family homes with gardens.

Episodes, broadcast on BBC2 on Monday evenings at 10pm

Above: screenprint of BBC iPlayer http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ysm34/Episodes_Episode_6/

I missed the latest installment of the comedy drama Episodes, broadcast on BBC2 on Monday evenings at 10pm. I intend to watch it on the BBC iPlayer. But this is not the same as seeing the actual broadcast.

10pm on BBC2 on Mondays is developing into a slot for high-qaulity comedy drama - Rev, Grandma's House, Miranda and now Episodes.

All these comedies seem to have as their theme "suburbia" and its bourgeoise values - a suburban vicar transplanted to the inner city, the deeply suburban sub-culture of Jewish north London, suburbanites experiencing Hollywood etc.

Perhaps this accounts for their popularity, since suburbia is where most of the British population live, and suburban people mostly want to see drama that reflects themselves.

On Youtube you can see examples of this genre from the ancient past - Father Dear Father, The Good Life, Bless This House. These kinds of productions went out of fashion with the rise of "alternative" comedy. Television comedy almost died as a result.

Peter Kosminsky drama The Promise on Channel 4

Above: the character "Erin" was played with miserabilist intensity by Claire Foy.

Very disappointed with the Peter Kosminsky drama The Promise on Channel 4 last night.

Two-dimensional characters, clod dialogue, one trite sentimental cliche after another.

It was so bad I was unable to watch the whole episode, and will not be watching any further installments.

NOTE ADDED 14TH FEBRUARY: I gave it another go last night and it is better than I thought. Christian Cooke in particular is a good actor and creates a convincing character (except for one or two quasi-political rhetorical speeches he has to deliver). Also modern Israel is too neat and tidy and not the chaotic place it actually is.

NOTE ADDED 21ST FEBRUARY: I watched it again last night, and tried to work out why overall it is a compelling drama and yet if you start to deconstruct any part of it you soon realise it is rubbish. Historically dodgy, narrative confused and over-complicated, characterisations crude. By every measure this series is awful. It is redeemed by the acting ability of Christian Cooke and Claire Foy. These two are so expert at creating a believable environment around themselves that they carry every scene. Never heard of either of them before this series.

NOTE ADDED 1ST MARCH: and I saw the final episode on Sunday. It had too many scenes crammed into two hours, so that nothing was properly developed. Each scene was perfectly acted by Christian Cooke and Claire Foy, but they were asked to work with some dire material, and the total aggregate of the drama was absurd.

A teacher from Essex has criticised these tentative reviews of The Promise, telling me by e-mail that my opinions are "unintelligent". I know that teachers become hidebound by their profession, and they cannot help themselves marking the work of others. But so that this person should not aim further sarcastic remarks at me here are a few examples of why I think The Promise is bad:

1) The Len Matthews character (Christian Cooke) witnesses a bloody massacre of Palestinians by Jewish settlers. In the middle of this frenzy Len Cooke goes up to one of the Jewish participants (who would have been half-crazed with bloodlust) and calmly tells him "you do realise this is against the Geneva Convention" as if the two of them were debating points at the Oxford Union. Not credible I'm afraid.

2) The Len Matthews character is on a crowded quayside looking for an Arab friend, and in the middle of a crowd of Arabs shouts the name "Mohammed". Presumably the writer doesn't know how popular the name "Mohammed" is in the Arab world. This was so laughably stupid that I had to look away from the screen momentarily.

3) The Erin Matthews character (Claire Foy) stands defiantly in front of an Israeli bulldozer about to destroy a Palestinian house. This scene made me feel very uneasy. A real peaceworker, Rachel Corrie, was killed in the same circumstances in 2003, and her tragedy should not be used as a dramatic aside.

4) The haircuts seem wrong for 1948. It's a small point but noticable. Surely Len Matthews would have used Brylcream?

5) Modern Israelis in The Promise are portrayed as westernized and English-speaking, whereas over half of the Jewish population of modern Israel originates from Middle Eastern countries and are certainly not Hampstead intellectuals.

6) Having seen all four episodes I think that the Kosminsky thesis (I could almost say agenda) is dishonest.

You can still see the episodes: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-promise/episode-guide




Above: Rachel Cooke said in The Observer that The Promise "promises to be one of the highlights of the decade" (possibly she had not actually watched the drama before she wrote this piece).

The headline writer (who is possibly a different person to Rachel Cooke) is right to emphasise the way Britain simply abandoned the area in 1947. This is an area that needs more investigation by historians. Both the 1947 ending of the United Nations Mandate over Palestine, and the 1947 withdrawl from India, were precipitously brought forward (irrespective of the danger to local populations) because Clement Attlee wanted to save money to set up the NHS - in its way this policy decision was as irresponsible as the Belgian withdrawl from Congo in the 1960s).



Above: EC Hodgkin was Deputy Editor of The Times.

Other sources give a more nuanced view of the Mandate period. The contradictions of the administration were present from the beginning, although accelerated by later events. Possession of the territory has always been disputed and has always depended on force.

Whistle And I'll Come To You on BBC2

Above: editorial in today's Guardian praising author M.R. James.

On Christmas Eve after attending the carol concert at the local minster, and before attending midnight Holy Communion at the parish church, I watched Whistle And I'll Come To You on BBC2. Although it worked as a drama and was worth watching I could not understand why the BBC chose to remake a James story that had previously been dramatised (the 1968 Hordern version is superb). As M.R. James wrote approximately forty ghost stories, why do they not dramatise something new?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00x1zmm



Above: or perhaps consider one of Conan Doyle's excellent stories?



Above: or maybe dramatise the ironic radio play produced a couple of years ago about the BBC's relationship with the works of M.R. James?

Monday evenings

I have been enjoying Monday evenings for the past few months. In the half-hour before Newsnight there was Rev for six weeks, followed by Grandma's House for six weeks (both of these were of a very high standard). I did hope that we would see a succession of short-series comedy dramas, one following the other, but tonight we are back to "alternative" comedy, audience participation and celebrity guests (boring, boring, boring).

First Time Voters Question Time on BBC3

On Wednesday I watched First Time Voters Question Time on BBC3

The programme was chaired by Dermot O’Leary, and included a panel of three celebrities and three politicians, with an audience of about one hundred – all presumably first time voters.

First time voters are given prominence because of the cultural idea (most famously belted out by George Benson and later Whitney Houston) that “the children are our future”. This is a flawed premise because “the children” will never actually inherit the future - as soon as they stop being children they will be immediately forced to acknowledge that a new tranche of children are the future. These in turn will be told they are “the future” until the moment they are forced to realise they are not.

Thus politicians are able to justify all kinds of shaky policies on the grounds that they are doing it “for our children”.

Anyway, the programme followed the usual Question Time format. Various questions were asked and answered. Nothing controversial was raised.

The most interesting aspect of the programme was the chairing by Dermot O’Leary. Slightly overlarge head, heavy jaw, smart suit but with the cuffs riding up. He is able to project a likeable personality, mainly through the use of his voice and facial expressions (although if you look into his biography, he is not an obviously likeable person, and some elements I would consider unlikeable).

At one point a panel member (I think it was David Lammy MP but it might have been one of the others) referred to Dermot O’Leary reverentially as “a celebrity” – but what exactly is he celebrated for, and who is celebrating him?

David Lammy also spoke disparagingly about “old white men in suits” then immediately made the exception “not you Dermot” (despite Dermot O’Leary’s qualification for the term).

Dermot O’Leary often referred to himself during the show (“I watch Question Time every week”) which is something David Dimbleby would never do. He scowled when he wanted to appear serious and sucked his lower lip quasi-adolescently whenever looking towards the singer Jamelia. He complemented David Lammy on use of the expression “mash-up” (although teenage argot is a minefield for anyone over the age of twenty).

I don’t mean to be negative but on the whole I felt the programme was a bit like Dr Johnson’s dog walking on hind legs – when you’ve seen it once you don’t particularly want to see it again.

Television

Our television broke yesterday. I have ordered another one, which will be delivered next Friday. In the meantime my brother went into an old cupboard (as a family we never throw anything away) and eventually produced a small black and white analog television. The cream plastic had gone yellow, and as you can see it is very grubby. We calculated that it must be at least thirty-five years old. We plugged it in and incredibly it worked.

Watching the fuzzy monochrome picture is like looking into the past - even the current news takes on the tinge of the 1970s. And the choice of only four channels was strangely liberating. Choice is not always good, and too much choice can be debilitating and stressful.

My other brother (lives in Norfolk) has a mega-TV. Recently he upgraded to the full Sky HD package, but has found (to his annoyance) that you can't switch channels when the adverts come on (the adverts follow you, sound and everything, in a small box in the top right corner). And I thought: that sounds like the Murdoch evil empire.

Jonathan Ross

I'm not sure what to make of the departure of Jonathan Ross from the BBC. He was a moderately funny interviewer, but not (in my opinion) worth the millions that he was being paid. I don't really see that his talent is all that unique.

Also, the BBC seems to be a bit slow in bringing forward new entertainers.

For instance, football (soccer) players are highly paid, but they don't hang around for several decades so that everyone gets bored with them. Also there is a working and on-going process whereby younger players are constantly being brought forward and challenging the established players. You can see this process in Jamie Redknapp's current series on Sky 1 Football's Next Star (I could only watch one episode - it consisted of sobbing seventeen-year-olds realising they have failed while Sky pokes a camera in their face and asks them how they feel).

The BBC could make any moderately-talented entertainer a success simply by putting them on television every week - repetition builds reputation.

An infectious Blue Peter style

Above: last night I watched Grow Your Own Drugs on BBC2. Presented by James Wong (an ethnobotanist, whatever they are) it looked at various herbal remedies for minor ailments. We saw James Wong walking barefoot through sunlit flower-strewn meadows, sensitively interviewing people with unsightly eczema, and mixing up herbal concoctions in an infectious Blue Peter style.



Above: my current library book is Nature's Alchemist by Anna Parkinson. It is a book about a book - John Parkinson's superlative 1629 Paradisi in Sole: Paradisus Terrestris. It describes the enthusiasm with which the seventeenth-century botanists recorded and classified the natural world (and also tells you a lot about religion, politics and life in Stuart London).



Above: Helen B's mother is a medical herbalist and often at her house you come across afternoon groups of earnest-minded blue-stocking medical herbalists debating symptoms and therapies and complaining that they are never taken seriously (they are qualified medical practitioners).

Ann Widdicombe and the Reformation

Credit where it is due. Up until yesterday the Channel 4 series History of Christianity has been rubbish, but last night’s documentary on the Reformation was a superlative piece of intellectual television. Scintillating visual images were combined with original insights in a way that had real integrity (you might not agree with everything that was said, but you couldn’t really fault it on grounds of logic).

The documentary was presented by the unfashionable Ann Widdicombe, and we saw her short dumpy figure and inquiring expression appearing in a succession of dramatic settings (parades of burning crosses, ravishing Renaissance architecture, dark priests’ holes in English country houses). Her wheezing slightly-asthmatic voice (with its Joyce Grenfell tinge of authority) told you everything you needed to know about this complex and contradictory period. One of the most stimulating programmes I have seen in a long while.

You can see the programme: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/christianity-a-history/episode-guide/series-1/episode-5

Rageh Omaar and the Crusades

Last night I watched the latest episode in Channel 4’s series about the history of Christianity. Even by the low standards of this series, this programme was awful. It was one of the most intellectually dishonest productions I have seen.

“War reporter” Rageh Omaar told us about the crusades – except that he didn’t. He told us a lot of half-truths, sixty-year-old versions of history and so many anachronisms I found myself saying “you idiot” out-loud to the television set. If this is the standard of accuracy Rageh Omaar works towards I will never trust another word he says.

Anachronism is when we judge a previous era by the standards of our own time. It is the one thing that historians (and also people claiming to present an accurate version of history) must never do. Instead you have to work hard to understand the mentalité of past generations, and see the world as they saw it (and if you can’t understand them, you should say honestly that you can’t understand them instead of pretending that you can).

Rageh Omaar made no attempt to understand the mentalité of either the crusaders or the medieval Islamic forces. Instead he told us how the crusades are perceived in the Middle East today, and then gave a very shallow “history” of the crusades that seemingly justified this view. There were so many errors I don’t really know where to begin.

The Rageh Omaar thesis is that the crusades were an early example of European colonialism. That they were horrifyingly violent and exactly comparable with the “holy war” of al qaeda today (this point was made repeatedly throughout the programme). That “the West” has only itself to blame for Islamic terrorism today because the crusades provoked it (oh, and Europeans are so ignorant they have “forgotten” the crusades – and therefore need the wise and enlightened Rageh Omaar to tell them how stupid and insensitive they are).

Rageh Omaar couldn’t make up his mind whether the crusades were nine hundred or a thousand years ago. He confidently asserted the crusades ended with the victory of Saladin (and were then “forgotten” in the West - whereas crusades probably continued until the 18th century). He seemed confused about the Knights Templars (crusaders were secular warriors who had taken a specific religious vow whereas the Templars were an order of fighting monks). He portrayed the initial impetus for the crusades as coming from Pope Urban II whereas they were a response to an appeal by the Emperor of Byzantium (the Byzantine territories were being over-run by expansionist Islamic forces). He was confused about what defines a “crusade” (utterances by President Bush do not count). He focused exclusively on the crusades as a clash between Christendom and the Islamic world.

This last point really needs to be challenged, as the idea of a clash between “East” and “West” is so erroneous as to completely undermine any credibility the programme might aspire to. The concept of “crusade” was a response by medieval Europe to the forces that threatened it from all directions. There were crusades to liberate the Holy Land (seen in terms of “patrimony”) but also crusades against the Islamic invasion of Spain, and crusades against the “pagan” Baltic areas. There were crusades against internal enemies such as the Cathars in southern France. The crusades did not stop after the victory of Saladin but continued for centuries afterwards (Chaucer’s Knight was a crusader; Henry IV went on a crusade to the Baltic before becoming king; there was a pre-emptive crusade against Egypt in 1365 etc). Riley-Smith has uncovered evidence of crusading (as legally defined, not the President Bush version) into the 18th century.

Various “experts” appeared in the programme, but the only one who had any credence was Christopher Tyerman (and why did the programme not include Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, the greatest living authority on the crusades?). Rageh Omaar quoted “the chronicles” without understanding that medieval chronicles are not impartial historical accounts but often deliberately exaggerated (or even entirely false). He doesn’t even seem to have read the Damascus Chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi.

Does any of this matter? Isn’t history these days just a smorgasbord of “facts”, opinions and impressions picked from whatever Google throws up? Isn’t one person’s view just as valid as anyone else’s?

I don’t have the answer to these questions. Rageh Omaar is right that the West has become ignorant of its own history (as he unintentionally demonstrated through his own production). But he also revealed that the Islamic world is equally ignorant (but in a different way).

Just when you think Channel 4 can’t go any lower it has a habit of surprising you. This programme is the sort of trash you would think had been produced by the crazies of Channel EMTV (Channel 200 on Sky). How much longer is Channel 4 going to receive a public subsidy?

You can see the garbage for yourself: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/christianity-a-history

More on mentalité: http://seis.bris.ac.uk/~clndgm/approaches/MENTAL.DOC

PS for such a self-proclaimed exponent of cultural sensitivity wasn’t it hypocritical of Rageh Omaar to point his cameras at the hooded Armenians in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during their divine service – or is he ignorant about just how offensive this is to them?

Christianity: A History on Channel 4 (Michael Portillo's contribution)

Above: in the county there is considerable evidence of a cult of St Helen among the villages on the southern slopes of the central hills. This fragment of stained glass shows the Emperor Constantine with the text In Hoc Signo Vinces (with this sign will come victory). As well as churches dedicated to Helen (the mother of Constantine) there are Helen farms, Helen wells, Helen woods - and a persistent legend that St Helen came from the area.

Yesterday I watched Michael Portillo's documentary on the Emperor Constantine's adoption of Christianity as an approved religion of the Roman Empire. It was a clever programme, inverting the usual analysis and stating that instead of Constantine converting the Roman Empire to Christianity he had converted Christianity into an mechanism of imperial control (with heavy implication that it has remained an imperial organisation to this day). Michael Portillo had an assured voice throughout the production, with an ability to state with complete confidence even the most shakiest of hypothesis.

Anyone who hadn't examined the period in detail might have been taken in by his cynical comparison of the power-politics of Constantine with the spin-doctoring of modern politicians. There was a lot of Michael Portillo in the commentary ("when I was in the Cabinet", "when I was Defence Secretary", "if I examine myself"). Was it possible Michael Portillo saw himself as a reincarnation of Constantine?

Where the programme fell down was in the details. There were so many errors and omissions that I stopped taking it seriously after the first fifteen minutes. For instance, there was a lot of confused commentary at Ephesus in modern Turkey (was he implying Nike and Artemis/Diana were one and the same?). When discussing the church of the Holy Sepulchre built by Helen in Jerusalem the film showed us the later Crusader church (the Helen structure had been destroyed in 1009 by the Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah). Michael Portillo listed the "bad" Christian emperors who had persecuted pagans, but failed to mention Julian's revival of paganism 331 - 363. Most dodgy of all, he relied upon "author" Jonathan Bartley for quasi-erudite pronouncements throughout the documentary (a Google search reveals that Jonathan Bartley is a Tory crony from John Major's regime 1991-97).

The biggest ommission of all was the absence of any credible motive. If Constantine wanted a religion he could use as an agent of social control why did he pick on a minority sub-sect of Judaism? The cult of Mithras would have been a much more likely candidate.

At the end of the programme Michael Portillo adopted a kindly-wise tone of voice and told us reassuringly "I believe power is for politicians" Really? I thought power belonged to the people.

Einstein and Eddington

Last Saturday I watched Einstein and Eddington, a drama shown on BBC2 about the interaction between the two scientists during the First World War.

It was a visually superlative work, directed by Philip Martin (and commissioned by Jane Tranter, Controller of BBC Fiction).

Full-lipped mittel-European beauties sang Schubert lieder. Symbolic dark thunder clouds rolled over the beautiful “Cambridgeshire” countryside as sunlight shone on the foreground, briefly illuminating the unrequited friends. Officious Prussians militarists behaved menacingly to non-conformists (so that you expected Maugham’s Ashendon to appear, suggesting a possible and ambiguous way out).

The dialogue was poor, even allowing for the fact that hardly anyone can understand the Theory of Relativity and so we had to take a great deal on trust. The sub-Mendelsohn music was irritating (not quite Fingal’s Cave so that I kept expecting it to break into the full overture). Also, I didn’t like the way the zenophobic crowd smashing the shop windows of foreigners was stereotyped as ignorant male C2 thugs – in fact as the sources show, this was done by men and women of all classes, and all levels of education.



Above: I was surprised at how good an actor David Tennant was in the film. He is so over-popular, in television productions that are so gushingly over-praised, that I had formerly regarded him as theatrical flim-flam (without any justification, since I havn’t watched any of the revived Dr Who). I meant to see him in Hamlet but as usual I didn’t get round to organizing it.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/05_may/21/einstein.shtml

Fingal’s Cave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJHaIevlvac

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

I am really enjoying the new dramatisiation of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, serialised on BBC1 at the moment. I had my doubts at first, especially as Little Dorrit herself seemed a bit too perky and modern. But all those doubts have gone now - this is an excellent dramatisation, with lots to say about the inadvisability of getting into debt.

One night recently, on the way home, I made a diversion to Doughty Street (despite the rain) just to stand outside Charles Dickens' house (picture above - the building is now a small Dickens museum). Doughty Street is in an area difficult to get to by the tube. I got soaking wet and went into a cafe (Starbucks) to dry off - only to get soaking wet again when I came out.

Even loyal supporters are deserting the field of battle

Above: at every stage Labour has been outwitted by the Conservatives (quote is from today’s Guardian).

Lunchtime, and I went into the Conference Room at twelve o’clock to watch the return of Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics.

As the Conference Room has three glass walls I felt a bit exposed sitting there watching the television until Terry (our MD) came in to join me.

Andrew Neil’s Daily Politics has a unique approach to political stories, treating all issues with a mocking and satirical interpretation that exposes pomposity and deceit in a way that only a genuine “insiders” can. “All power corrupts” Lord Acton said in 1887, and Daily Politics looks for the corruption that inevitably underlies political decisions and manifestations of government power. As someone who mistrusts politicians (especially the messianic saviour types, whether Left or Right) it is reassuring to know they are being watched in this way.

The programme is presented by Andrew Neil, Jo Coburn and Liz MacKean, who work very well together as a team.

Ostensibly reporting from the Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth, the programme cross-referenced this with the continuing demise of Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In a discussion with columnists from The Times and The Independent the Prime Minister was described as “staggering” towards disaster. Liberal Democrat spokesman Vince Cable, in a speech shown live on the programme, called Gordon Brown a “twitching corpse”.

Like Richard III at Bosworth, support for “Gordon” is ebbing away. Even loyal supporters are deserting the field of battle. Traitors and arch-traitors are all around him (in a sensational betrayal at the start of the summer recess, a smiling Foreign Secretary David Miliband published an article and fronted a press conference that completely undermined and marginalised “Gordon” and effectively treated him as a non-person).

Later in the programme Andrew Neil interviewed Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, who said the “Whitehall machine” was too big, and promised tax cuts if the Liberal Democrats get into government (possible if there is a hung parliament).

David Cameron has also started to talk about tax cuts.

Terry interpreted these tax-cutting promises:

“They intend to dismantle Labour’s empire. They could probably cut quite a lot by only targeting the claques and cliques Labour has embedded in local and national government. Just by stripping political correctness out of the system they could save a hefty sum for tax cuts, and without antagonising ordinary people.”

There has been a lot of talk about the “fatalism” of the Labour party, and the “inevitability” of their decline. Commentators struggle to understand why the decline should be inevitable. Possibly anthropology can provide an answer.

We are witnessing the playing-out of an age-old myth that has recurred in western Europe since pre-classical times. It is a variation of the cult of the Golden Bough in the grove at Nemi, discovered and analysed by Sir James Frazer over ninety years ago (the king who slew the slayer and must himself be slain). This is the way (sub-consciously) we choose our leaders, and the story must play out to its end.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/dailypolitics/andrewneil/

An interview

Last night I watched Mark Lawson interview Jonathan Meades (BBC4 very late).

In theory this interrogation between two of television’s most cerebral presenters should have been a memorable event. As if the late Lord Clark had been interviewed by the late Jacob Bronowski. Or Edward Gibbon cross-examined by Adam Smith.

But actually it fell a bit flat.

The two thinking-entities warily looked at each other and exchanged polite opinions. Mark Lawson would hesitate for a few seconds and then ask a tentative question. Jonathan Meades would hesitate for a few seconds and then carefully tell him the answer.

Jonathan Meades had an open, innocent, wide-eyed expression throughout, as if perfectly willing to answer more difficult and probing questions (but at the same time that little furrow on his brow seemed to warn: if you try to make me look silly I will rip your arms and legs off).

Mark Lawson’s questions were oddly truncated, as if edited to remove his characteristic tics and blinks and rapid nodding (these usually make very good television, but in this interview could only be seen obliquely from behind the head, and in half-shadow).

Mostly the questions were about Meades style rather than Meades substance. At one point Jonathan Meades mentioned he had lost seven stone in one year (seven stone - that’s ninety-eight pounds!) and looked as if he might explain more fully how he had done this. But the “how” questions never came.

This was not really an interview. It was more a demonstration of the balance of terror theory. An exposition of the idea behind the deterrent of mutually assured destruction.

More: http://www.jonathanmeades.com/

Magnetic North: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0090bzs

* apologies for getting the weight in pounds wrong - maths was never my strong point.