Gertsamtkunstwerk

Dear Diary

I have just been watching the programme of the same name, the first in a series, this one presented by Richard E. Grant, less annoyingly than I feared, and at least it wasn't Hugh Grant, who someone told me was Richard E's brother, which I believed for years, largely because I am insufficiently interested in either to bother finding out the truth.

I kept a diary from the age of twelve until I got my first PC at the age of 30. The owning of a PC changed all that. Ironic really - it should have been the key to more writing. If the truth be told, I was probably the world's crappest diarist in the 1990s, although some of my efforts from the 1980s are immortalised in this blog.

I've actually come to the conclusion that my best diary writing was as an adolescent, because I was actually quite clueless about how to write a diary. I had this vague notion it was important to express an opinion about important things in the news, even though I lacked the maturity or wisdom to work out what was important and what was fluff. But the use of a single sentence to sum up my reaction to, oh, I dunno, the Falklands War or glasnost is hilarious, to me anyway.

When I became more self-aware, or introspective, or analytical, and started to use my diary to analyse my feelings, it became all very tedious.

Pages and pages of pretty much the same mistake being made time and time again. Pick a name, any credible male name, and slot it into a narrative which runs like this

"I have a crush on him, I want to go out with him, this isn't reciprocated, if I keep crushing on him he will learn the error of his ways, I'm going to keep telling people how much I crush on this bloke, they're getting impatient because nothing is happening and it's a non-story".

And I utterly failed to realise - amidst all the self-analysis and emoting that my supposed emotions were false, an illusion.

Reading back over the diary, I am surprised at how entertaining a fairly straight narrative is, how much seeps through the seemingly dry prose. Looking back nearly thirty years it is easy to pinpoint the changes made by technology, and, perhaps in societal attitudes, but, actually, it's amazing how little fundamentally has changed. 

I'm trying to get back into writing a paper diary. It has to be paper, which I know is silly, but for me it's important sensually. I've been through phases of writing for an imagined audience, assuming I'll be famous and the world will want to read my teenage diaries. I've also considered using them as a basis for fiction. But it has recently occurred to me that they may actually have a value in being the real  - though obviously edited - diaries of a slightly odd 1980s teenager. In all cases a word-processed version would actually be more useful!

Anyone know how I go about getting a publisher for my 80s diaries?

I'm still laughing at my entry in 1982: In Maths we played on the computer. It is most interesting

Things that annoy me in TV dramas

I know that fiction is fiction. I can suspend credibility to know that time passes at a different rate in TV dramas (and films and plays).

I know they edit out all the inconsequential actions. It would be boring if they showed every meal, every visit to the loo, every time they check their emails or buy something - although it does mean that checking of emails, going to loo, or, indeed, presenting a credit/debit card is a shorthand for 'watch out, something is going to happen and it will be an axis on which the plot rotates.

I'm relaxed about juxtaposition of locations - except where they are iconic picture postcard locations: I'd be worried if they showed Buckingham Palace to be on the river, but I'm relaxed about a residential road I happen to recognise seeming to emerge onto the wrong main road.

I'm also very relaxed about the 'he/she wouldn't do that' because, just because you or I would wouldn't, or most people wouldn't, doesn't automatically prevent someone else from so doing.

What I hate is pure basic factual errors. It shocks me that with the number of people who go into making a TV drama not one speaks out and says "That's wrong!". Loud enough to get a researcher or unpaid intern scurrying off to Google.

Two classics from the past. One was in that comedy series starring Jack Dee that started off funny but deteriorated. He made some joke about some company highlighting their anti-environmental practices, which immediately caused their share price to plummet (unlikely but possible). As a direct result of their share price plummeting, they went bankrupt, notwithstanding whatever reserves they held, how many contracts they were fulfilling. Okay, I can envisage a situation where loss of reputation can lead to withdrawing of credit, but not overnight.

In some political drama or other, there was utter confusion between a White Paper and a Bill. I can't remember the error but it was so basic that it scared me they were making a political drama without consulting someone who knew anything about basic Parliamentary procedure.

Mistresses the other night provided another classic to add to the list - the retrieval from a house of the Title Deeds to that same house. A house that laid empty for several months. there was no evidence that the deeds had been stored in a fireproof waterproof safe. And in any case, didn't one person on set question this? Who stores the title deeds in the actual house?

Do they think we are really thick? I've cited three examples where I've spotted the flaw. The first - well, I'm an accountant, admittedly, but even so, I suspect there are tens if not hundreds of thousands of people more familiar with the relationship between share capital, turnover, cash flow etc of a business than I am.

I have an A-Level and a degree in Politics, but so do countless others, and there are many many more people who have experience and knowledge of the political process.

The final one is even more ridiculous. How many millions of home-owners are there in this country. Admittedly, most will be on a mortgage and therefore will have no dealings with the title deeds. But I thought it  was just one of those things that is widely known, even if not universally.

I know no one's perfect, and we all mistakes, but it surprises me that they let these programmes go out with such glaring errors on matters so fundamental to the plot.

I have to say though, Mistresses has become very silly, pushing credibility to the limits. The scene in the kitchen where Trudie declares the buns need another '45 seconds'. Not to mention that she's flouting all the rules on good safety by wearing the wrong clothes, not having her hair covered and so on.

Then you get the wedding of the New York woman, who is marrying the ex of one of the mistresses, Siobhain. It's not unreasonable for an American woman to get married in her British husband's home town - I've been to a wedding where precisely that happened. And, inevitably, the friends/relatives are going to be predominantly his. But how likely is it that a significant proportion of the wedding party is made up of the friends - and their husbands - of the groom's ex-girlfriend? And yet, the groom's daughter seemed to be absent from both ceremony and reception.

I suppose I get annoyed by these programmes predicated on a friendship group. I will stand corrected but I doubt that any such group remains unchanged for decades, irrespective of who has kids, emigrates (and comes back). Don't most people have a network of friends, picked up from various places - old friends from school and Uni, people you've worked with, people with common interests, people whose kids are friends with your kids, and friends who you have to think what the actual connection is - maybe they are the sister of the ex-girlfriend of the housemate of someone you worked with briefly ten years go.

I think Mistresses is a good laugh and harmless fun. It's rather nice to see their ridiculously affluent lifestyles begin to crumble, based on an unsustainable basis of debt. But the message these programmes send out, if taken seriously - as immature insecure people may well - is that this is some sort of 'normality' something to aspire to. And that's very sad, because aren't they just the dullest self-absorbed people ever, not one of them having an interest in anything but themselves, their lovelife and - occasionally - their jobs.

The campaign for Radio 6

When I first read of the pending decision to scrap BBC's mainly-web* 6Music, my instinctive reaction was 'Oh, that's a shame." Not that I listen to it, but I rather like the idea of a pop music station that doesn't just play whatever's due to be in the Top 20 next week.

The announcement was made formally earlier this week; by then I had adopted a view 'Yeah, go ahead and scrap it', largely because of the campaign to save it.

NB: None of the following remarks are intended to generalise about all Radio 6 listeners or indeed all of those who have been calling for its salvation

Many years of campaigning have taught me tactically never alienate or insult the Undecideds or Neutrals you wish to persuade to your point of view. If, for example, you are campaigning to save a pensioners' day centre, don't suggest the playgroup as an alternative victim. And don't insult the people who value their local parks and open spaces.

Many of the arguments that have been deployed smack of a smug sense of innate superiority and entitlement, best summed up in the catchphrase that was being retweeted by far too many people on my Twitter-stream "The only publicly-funded radio station for people who like music".

I was knocked-out by the sheer breathtaking arrogance and ignorance of that statement. Supposedly, Radio 6 concentrates on a particular niche, that of 'Indie Rock', a niche, as it happens, that is to my liking. I have been struggling for nearly 30 years, since I first scoured the 'Indie Charts' in Smash Hits, to work out whether Indie is a particular style of music or whether it should be defined purely by a commercial criterion - being on an 'Independent' record label that isn't part of of one of the multi-national giants. IIRC, the England World Cup record

"This time, more than any other time, we're going to find a way, find a way to get a way, getting it all together, to win the Cup is what we'll set out to do"

was number one in the Indie charts in June 1982, making the 'Indie' tag just a bit spurious.

However you classify music - big broad sweeping titles such rock and pop, folk, classical, jazz - or whether you go into every sub-category - bluegrass, baroque chamber vocal music, neo-bop, basement, whatever - most of them don't get a national publicly funded radio station. 

It doesn't take great insight into human behaviour to know that we have very diverse tastes in music. Even within a genre, there can be fierce disagreement and I have found people whose tastes are 80% similar to mine and the other 20% makes me think "Er, what?". If you seriously think no music other than your preferred genre/sub-genre is likeable, I would suggest it is you that doesn't like music; if you can dismiss the entire outputs of Radios 1, 2, and 3, perhaps it's about time you emerged from your narrow cocoon and experienced something a bit wider.

I did read a blogpost that suggested that Radio 6 is for people 'not yet ready' for Mendelssohn and Mantovani. Great soundbite - and very revealing.

I could be bitchy and rephrase it as 'people who lack the musicality and intellectual curiosity to develop their knowledge and taste' but bitchy isn't my style!And the idea that you have to get 'ready' to listen to Mendelssohn is beyond laughable - and probably coming from someone who has (deliberately) never knowingly heard Mendelssohn in their entire life!

This was the same blogpost that praised good old former GLR (a radio station I used to love) but picked Danny Baker as one of the highlights - Danny Baker, whose breakfast show the morning after Jean Le Pen came second in the first round of the French Presidential elections had a phone-in which featured such gems as "We're called Pete and Sue and this couple moved in next door and they were also called Pete and Sue, we nearly died laughing"

I hate the idea that music tastes can be determined by age or or demography in general, but a survey of the listeners of any particular radio station would probably find age-related trends. I guess that the target audience of Radio 6 is 25-ish to 45-ish and rather more male than female.

So, part of the campaign involves dissing Radio 2 because it's mainly for Housewives and the Retired. Invisible and irrelevant people, in other words, who don't deserve to be considered by any public organisation because they're not 30-something males, the most important group in society. In fact, I have heard a lot of older people are pretty pissed off at Chris Evans being on Radio 2 breakfast show, because his style of radio (like that of Jonathan Ross) is aimed primarily at 25-45 year old males. (And yet, more of the population is over 50 than under 50 - or something like that).

Ultimately, that's all a bit petty. Maybe it's time that the role of radio was seriously rethought, anyway. There seems to be a general consensus that daytime music radio is largely wallpaper, to be played in shops and cafes or when driving, and that music radio stations, in general, are more interesting in the evenings.

A cursory glance at the Radio Times shows me that large portions of the schedules of Radios 1, 1-Extra, 2, 6, and many commercial stations are largely made up of the presenter's name. Some of them mean something to me, most of them mean little. Each of them seem to have a token woman among all the men - Radio 2 seems even to have an Asian woman. So, actually it's no real guide to what's on.

Some of them mention that the show includes some 'live sets'  (no clue as to who is playing 'live') but the implication is that most of the rest is a mixture of commercially available records, talk (or blather) from presenters, and phone-ins - where members of the public get a few moments of fleeting fame so the station doesn't have to pay money for quality content from professionals.

Nowadays a lot of commercial stations have done away with presenters. They don't need the skills of putting a needle on a track and they don't see any need to pretend that the personalities are choosing what to play. Radio 6 is no different from Radio 1, or, I suppose, Radio 2 in being 'playlist' driven - a committee of executives (or a station controller) deciding what should be played, over and again, on a week-by-week basis. At what point does 'entertainment' become 'advertising'?

I have seen lots of arguments that Radio 6 is great for spotting new talent. Things like 'we don't get many people at our gigs and our My Space only got a few hundred hits so without Radio 6 we wouldn't have had exposure'. I'm tempted to say - if your gigs aren't attractive and few people are interested in your internet self-promotion, maybe a commercial career isn't for you. I know it's not that straightforward, and I definitely know that commercial success and great art have no correlation, but I would also argue that there is no divine right to be heard.

BBC pop radio emerged in the 60s as a reaction to people hungrily listening to the latest pop record releases on Caroline, Luxembourg etc. But that was before I was born, and I'm now an old fogey; maybe, in the internet era, it's time to move on.

I would guess that most Radio 6 listeners have broadband (I realise that in some remote areas like the Highlands and Islands broadband isn't widespread but I need some convincing that a radio strategy should be built around this restriction).

It is no longer necessary to wait with baited breath for the new releases to be played on Radio 1 or to read Smash Hits/NME to find out what's happening. Surely, if you are part of an internet community that shares your taste in music you will find out by word of mouth (or typing) about some new act that's worth checking out, and in turn, you'll report your own live discoveries.

There is still a place for studio records, but my glance at the Radio Times doesn't tell me where it is. Records can tell a story; a skilful presenter can make that happen. And yes, I don't listen enough these days to pop radio to know who the skilful presenters are. Recordings are incredibly cheap - the first single I bought in 1978 was 69p. In 2009 I almost downloaded Rage Against the Machine's Christmas number one - for 29p. Albums cost at least a fiver back then; even the cost of a tape to record your mates' copy was quite a lot of pocket money.

It's actually a bit strange that 6 out of 8 of the BBC's national radio stations are to a large extent music based, and that these are so rigidly divided into genres (Radio 2 perhaps less rigidly). Even now, retuning radios is more cumbersome than changing TV channels, but that is becoming less so with radio-via-internet and radio-via-satellite/cable-TV. For some reason I don't have a tuner with my current stereo but 20 years ago I bought a mini-system where your could pre-set up to 40 stations, and I think this will be the norm when analogue is phased out. Iplayer means you don't even have to listen at the scheduled time.

There seems to be little reason for dividing radio into genre-driven stations. Yes, it can be annoying to hear jazz (unpleasant to my ear) if I tune in early for Opera on 3 on a Saturday evening, but, that's life, I get over it. Commercial radio - I think of Melody, Heart, Jackie and various hyper-local stations around the country - seems to do reasonably well providing the bland music-as-wallpaper I hear in cabs and hairdressers. 

The record industry has to face up to major commercial change arising out of technological changes. It grew rich in a symbiotic or parasitical relationship with radio. Of course, the record industry is suffering commercially, so probably needs radio more than ever. But it doesn't seem clear to me that radio needs the recording industry, and it certainly doesn't seem that music lovers (irrespective of taste - or lack of!) need radio to bring new material to their attention.

When I was a kid, I had a sort of ambition to be a radio disc-jockey (prior to becoming Prime Minister). I did a bit on student radio (award-winning URN, although I never got near awards!), but I found I preferred the speech-based news/magazine style, and, ultimately, preferred to 'do' rather than passively react to others doing. Back in the 70s I was aware of Annie Nightingale being just about the only woman on national pop radio; I don't think it's changed much since.

TV isn't much better - how many serious documentaries get presented by women, compared to how many get presented by Snows, Dimblebys, and all the other Establishment males - Sharma, Fry? Other than Alice Roberts I'm struggling to think of any (although I'm probably forgetting someone obvious).

I get sick of the predominance of male voices on Today, but the schedule for Radio 4 is interesting today: Kirsty Young, Patti Smith, Clair Jaquiss, Jenni Murray, Lucy Ash, Francine Stock, Carolyn Quinn, Kirsty Lang, Lisa Jardine, with about as many men scattered in between. Radio 4 manages as many Kirstys as Radios  1 and 6 manage entire women between them. Not that it matters in itself but it really does demonstrate how pop radio in particular is stuck in a timewarp of male-dominated commercially-directed shilling for the record companies.

I don't see any persuasive argument for retaining Radio 6, other than it plays music that some people enjoy, but I also see no persuasive argument for the analogue FM stations to carry on in the same style they have been for my entire life. There is scope for more diversity, for more real live (or recorded live)  music and, I would hope, for more speech-based but not-in-the-style-of-Radio-4 programmes.

* I know it's also available on DAB and satellite/cable TV

Pop star to popera star

Well, I just watched it. In some ways it wasn't as bad as I dreaded and in so many ways so much worse.

It was literally, laugh-a-minute car crash telly. It sucked all the way from concept to practice via appalling scripting.

I do get annoyed when Katherine Jenkins is constantly described as an opera singer. Surely, she has veto over the scripts, but she just sits there and lets it go, even though in a subsequent interview, when it suits her, she'll deny ever having described herself as that.

Just for the record, Katherine Jenkins has never performed in an opera in her life. She has never appeared in a professional concert singing without a microphone. She has recorded and sings in concert a small number of arias from operas. Her technique and interpretation will not stand comparison against hundreds of lesser-known singers who actually do perform in operas.

The whole exercise is utterly pointless. I can see the idea behind it, but someone really needed to think it through properly. What are they trying to prove? Either that singing in opera is easy, anyone can do it. Or else it's so hard that despite intense coaching, even people with a track record of performing and in some cases with decent singing voices can't do it satisfactorily?

If you get some of them making a decent fist of singing an isolated aria into a microphone, so what? That's just the start of it. And in any case, I didn't notice any of them actually working from the score, just learning it by ear. If the point is to prove it's difficult, then the end result is caterwauling and anti-music.

If the objective is some stupid misguided attempt to bring opera to a ITV Friday night audience, that isn't going to work, either. There's no point saying that opera is about love, sex and death if you then get a bunch of amateurs failing to put any meaning into arias disconnected from their dramatic context and failing even to put surtitles on the screen. If you are sincere in that objective, you televise the very best singers performing well-rehearsed concerts, even if you're too scared to televise an actual opera with its sex and death and passion.

Why on earth should anybody without prior knowledge have a clue about the debauchery and cynicism of the rapist Duke of Mantua just from hearing a tune that's used for pasta sauce adverts? How can an audience judge whether the singer has conveyed the meaning of the song if they don't have any hint about the meaning? How can anybody fall in love with a song of any genre when it's badly sung? It wouldn't have taken much effort to have a brief description of the context; sub-titles would definitely have been a good thing.

I think, like Maestro, it may eventually demonstrate which of the contestants has innate musicality and which has a poor sense of pitch. But so what? They have their careers and their fans and they have demonstrated that they are good, or at least, successful, at what they do.

As for the panel, what can I say? Katherine Jenkins was out of her depth, even though she's pretty good at pretending. It's like someone's told her about her poor breath control and dodgy phrasing and it's now embedded in her head. And that's what she's going to keep going on about. She came over like a not-very-cool prefect on display at Speech Day and wanting the assembled parents and governors to know how seriously she takes her responsibility for the younger girls.

Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen's comments were bland and inconsequential. Meatloaf is on something. I found him very entertaining even though he really was talking total nonsense. Rolando Villazón was trying to be fair and critical at the same time; he had the 'audacity' to criticise Danny Jones from McFly (who was probably almost the worst of the lot) and got booed by a crowd of demented hysterical McFly groupies who don't have a clue. The trouble is, Rolando is speaking from the heart and from years of experience, but in the end, what does it matter?

And as for the pop singers. Darius came over the most instinctively musical although with zero personality. Alex James was the only one who seemed to care about the character he was portraying - and did a splendid tuneless patter. As for the rest, some clearly have decent basic voices, but in general I think they all did worst in the areas where they ought to have done best - keeping to the tune and on pitch, and projecting some sort of personality, some sort of stage presence, that je ne sais quoi where the performer connects with the audience, irrespective of what the performance is. But it's all relative: not one of them sang in a way that could honestly be described as adequate.

Alan Titchmarsh was less annoying than I feared he would be. Jimmy's admitted to a sneaking admiration for Mylene Klass even though he didn't know who she was when he met her last May.

But the single most annoying thing, even more annoying than Katherine Jenkins was that for each singer, they were permitted to sing the opening phrase of their aria or song, and then the audience broke into applause and cheers. What was that - tune recognition? Do people seriously have to shout out loud if they recognise a tune? Bizarre. And as for those McFly fans, oh dear. I'm sure it said on the ticket application that no one under sixteen was allowed in. The way they screamed, I'm sure it was a bunch of 13-year-olds.  And he wasn't any good. Bland, below pitch, and far too pleased with himself.

And then to cap it all, we had Camilla Kerslake singing. She is some 'soprano' discovered by Gary Barlow. I hadn't heard until I caught some of the Titmarsh show in the doctor's waiting room the other day. I have to say, dear reader, she actually makes Katherine Jenkins look polished; her high notes are thin and wavery, and although I suspect she was singing in English I simply couldn't tell a word she says.

Next week, Katherine Jenkins will be performing. The sado-masochist in me hopes it will be Una voce poco fa

The Alan Yentob and Franco Zefferelli Show

This should be read in conjunction with the previous post Imagine, The Fan Girl Review

I tuned in last night to watch 'Imagine' on BBC1, featuring my hero, Plácido Domingo. I do regard myself as something of an expert on the subject (not the ultimate expert, not more of an expert than you, but enough...), and I also realise it's never really a good idea to watch a TV programme when you know more about the subject than the presenter - when a subject I know well from work comes up on the TV I tend to shout at the telly because they get it just so wrong.

There were a few minor inaccuracies in the programme that irritated me but I let them go. For example, when they said he studied at the Conservatory in Mexico City where he met and married a fellow student, Marta, I knew that several key sentences had been omitted but realise that explaining the whole story of his life between 16-21 would have taken up too much time, even though it was actually quite crucial to his career.

I realise that TV programme makers set up shots for televisual effect. There was a clip of the Dress Rehearsal of Simon B, which I assume was supplied by the Berliner Staatsoper. Artful editing of the camera cutting away to the programme presenter sat in a box intensely watching the performance, in an otherwise empty house. Even when Dress Rehearsals are 'closed' I am certain that at least some of the stalls will be occupied by people involved in the production, house management, guests of cast members and the crew filming and recording stage proceedings.

Perhaps it was just a conceit to give the impression of totally exclusive access; but it's also deceitful, and when documentary-makers insert pointless deceits it creates doubt as to their reliability.

I was a bit surprised at the roles the programme chose to concentrate on. He has sung so many that it is a bit difficult to choose just a few handful.

Certainly Otello Cavaradossi, Don José, and I guess, Canio were excellent choices. But it was perplexing that the discussion on Wagner focused almost entirely on Lohengrin, with a just a passing reference to Parsifal. To focus so much time on Ernani was just weird. I deduced that the roles were chosen because the BBC had the rights to show them. I think it's remiss to  make a programme on Plácido Domingo,  that discusses his move into  Wagner, without even mentioning his great role of Siegmund.

The premise of the programme was a very well known tenor  taking an unusual step into a major baritone role, at the age of 68, after 50 years in the profession. The programme presenter made several mentions of the fact that he, nevertheless, is continuing to sing tenor roles. There was no mention of what the tenor roles are. Obviously, there is no place in telly for listing, but there should have been mention of the Baroque roles of Oreste and Bajazet.

I was curious as to the choice of some of the contribrutors. None of them was a perverse choice. Short archive clips from José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti, naturally. Daniel Barenboim, because he was conductor of the Simon B. It's difficult to criticise the inclusion of Kiri Te Kanawa and Zubin Mehta. Kiri I think is an obvious choice, although must have been recorded several years ago, judging by her comments on Operalia - how it's a good idea and how she hopes these 'students' will become the stars of the future  (whereas,  as we know, many past winners and finalists are the stars of today!). And I guess Zubin is just as obvious a choice.

I really could have done without there being so much Franco Zefferelli. I know he's one of the biggest opera fans in the history of the world and is very knowledgeable, but it was almost like it was the FZ show. He never seemed to shut up, and, really, he didn't have anything of any worth to say, with the sole exception of saying that Plácido was traumatised after the earthquake. I'm really surprised that Zeff didn't mention Maria Callas, or maybe he did, but it was edited out. I just don't think he added anything to the programme, and his pointless meanderings just took up too much time.

The single biggest annoyance was the presenter and interviewer, Alan Yentob. He wasn't very good. I try not to be influenced by the general bad-mouthing of him I have heard and read from various BBC employees -  'the poor man's Melvyn Bragg'. But he's rubbish at interviewing.

Many of us know Plácido, from the TV and in person, as a fun, lively, funny, flirtatious person. Of course he also has a serious side, and he is at his most engaging (off-stage) when he mixes the serious and fun sides. But you wouldn't know from this programme what a warm and engaging person he is.  I didn't get the feeling that he was being deliberately defensive but I don't think he was relaxed. There were several times when he gave brief answers to questions, when on other occasions he would expand.

For example, Yentob mentioned that prior to being in Berlin, Plácido had been performing on several continents. It sounded somewhat barbed, like a criticism. Plácido explained that he had performed concerts in China, South America, Kazakhstan and Moscow, and left it at that.

On other occasions I am sure he would have been expansive on how wonderful it is to perform in front of so many people and how unbelievable the public are, and how by doing concerts in arena hopefully he can introduce people to opera, and so on.

Obviously, it's difficult to tell how much was edited out, and I do accept that brevity isn't always one of Plácido's strong points, but he is so eloquent when he talks about music, and even more so about the positive effect that music has on people, and how much he feels proud and privileged to be able to bring this joy to people - nothing of that in this programme.

In my view, apart from his singing, his musicianship, his stage presence and dramatic portrayals, his professionalism and dedication, one of the most remarkable aspects of Plácido is how he inspires affection, adoration and devotion. Again, this was barely touched on.

Imagine is billed as the BBC's flagship Arts programme, which, considering that the only competitor is Lauren Laverne's Lack-of-Culture Show, is pretty meaningless. Actually Lauren Laverne would have made a better job of it than Alan Yentob (and I hold her in total contempt after her interview with Billy Bragg when she asked such questions as 'what's Beethoven's 9th? I don't think I've heard of that' and 'what's a diminished 7th?').

I realise that it's never going to be like that wonderful 1994 documentary that shadowed Plácido for several months, at home and in rehearsal as well as on stage. He is an incredibly busy and elusive man; it is often reported how difficult it is to schedule an interview with him - because of his schedule, certainly not because he's difficult or unco-operative. I imagine that the interview only took half an hour, an hour at the most, to film, in two separate sittings.

But ultimately I didn't see the point of the programme; if it was supposed to be about the transition from tenor to baritone, this was barely touched upon, and certainly there was no explanation of why it should be so noteworthy.

If it was supposed to be a retrospective, it wasn't very well researched, and very patchy. I realise that a career so long and busy as Plácido's is difficult to sum up succinctly. I feel that if I had the opportunity to interview him, there's a whole load of questions I would ask him (no, no, not like that!).

I wouldn't be asking questions to make myself look clever, but ones that either pique my curiosity or I suspect would pique others. I am sure that in about 50 years time, when they'll have to show something as an obituary, it won't be this programme  (not that I'll be around to know, but he's intending to live until 120).

It's de rigeur to fill these documentaries with headshots of people giving opinions. I would make more an effort to get a wider variety of contributors - and not Franco bloody Zefferelli who appears on every single programme that's ever made about any opera matter.

I would seek out analysis, opinions and anecdotes that shed light on why he is - in the words of Zubin Mehta - the greatest singer of the 20th century. I would like to contrast his roles as singer and conductor, examine what motivates him to keep on and on, always being away from home, never resting. I would look at the influence on and inspiration to young singers, directly and indirectly.

I would even include thoughtful reasoned criticisms - such as that by singing so many roles, he risks not getting inside them all; how good a conductor is he - and more to the point, how much time is he able to devote to preparing an orchestra for a performance, or indeed, how can he impose his stamp on an orchestra when he spends so little time with any of the orchestras he conducts. And I would challenge him about aspects of crossover, too. (But I guess that's why I'm a lowly accountant and not a BBC Executive with three salaries).

More TV alerts

Somewhat in the manner of London buses, there are several programmes scheduled soon on BBC TV that will be of interest to fans of opera and classical music.

Starting tonight on BBC2 with Purcell: The Londoner and continuing in subsequent weeks with Handel: The Conquering Hero, and then Haydn and Mendelssohn (ie getting more tenuous on the 'British' as we go along!). It's just an excuse to wallow in anniversaries of years ending in 9, of course. I could be churlish but I can assure you I shall be setting my Sky+

This coming Friday - note, a week earlier than previously advertised - is Purcell's Dido and Aeneas from ROH, starring Sarah Connolly, with some other notable performances.

I guess the Acis and Galatea part of the double bill will be shown the week after. But I'm sure we'll get more info nearer the time.

The Sky+ will be set.

Also potentially of interest is Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra , also tonight on BBC2.

Finally, in probably the nearest that ITV will get to 'culture' (The South Bank Show is set to be abolished) - The 2009 Classical Brit Awards at the Royal Albert Hall will be broadcast on Tuesday 19th May, at 10.35pm on ITV1. I imagine my Sky+ may be set. I wouldn't be surprised if selected highlights end up on Rapidshare and/or YouTube.

TV ballet alert

Tonight on BBC4 7.30 pm, Manon with Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo.

I don't know much about ballet, but I do know those names! If I could be said to be a fan of any dancer it would be Carlos Acosta. And I was impressed by Tamara Rojo when I saw here in that one, wassname, got a lot of swans in it.

Kenneth MacMillan’s three-act ballet Manon is not just one of the great showpieces of The Royal Ballet, for whom it was created, but also now of the classical ballet repertory worldwide. The famous story follows the young girl Manon, torn between her impetuous love for the student Des Grieux and her desire for wealth and comfort as a kept woman of a rich man.

These two central roles are showcases for the skill and dramatic power of any dancers, and this time round there will be the extra thrill of catching several debuts from up-and-coming young stars of The Royal Ballet. The stage picture brings to life the 18th century – from the bustling courtyard of an inn where the couple first meet to the louche atmosphere of a Parisian house of ‘entertainment’ and its courtesans. Expressive music drawn from Massenet has been skilfully woven into a ballet score that alternates the sensuous and the dramatic to match the adult themes of a world-class ballet.

On Susan Boyle

I suppose I am just missing the point of what the "story" is.

That someone over 25, who doesn't get 'styled' has a decent voice and can hold a tune? I'm not being funny, but haven't these people ever been to church or a choral concert, or seen them on TV? Or noticed diverse community groups. Or dog-walkers. Or playgroups. Or whatever.  Haven't they ever met anyone with moderate learning difficulties? People who think you have to be 'beautiful' to have musical 'talent' have obviously never heard of the Rolling Stones. If you haven't heard of the Rolling Stones, why on earth should I pay any attention to your musical opinions. (Not that I'm an RS fan, but despite their ugliness, they've clearly got something).

The majority of people don't get styled. The majority of people have a modicum of talent somewhere or other. If one spotted a really ugly, intellectually challenged,  bloke in one's local pub  would one be surprised that he's a steady opening bat? We wouldn't be signing him up for England, just maybe suggesting he could do better than the pub team, maybe the village/town First XI. 

I don't have enough time to listen to all the recordings (commercial and downloads) of great singers, so why bother with mediocre?  If I am going to pay money for a live performance, I want the very very best. Why can't we, as society, accept that all over the place lots of people are getting personal satisfaction from amateur participation in group activities, Ents, Sport, whatever. Why does everything have to an implication of a price tag?

If Simon Cowell was serious about talent, he'd go looking for it, in the pubs and clubs and village halls where real talent performs week after week. A friend of mine, his sons auditioned for the X-Factor (best unsigned band in Kent blah blah blah FWIW) and SC turned them away from being too good, too indie, and too original.

Don't get me wrong, I don't wish any ill on the woman, but I don't see the point of raw talent. I want singers who have worked for years to get to where they are, like I want footballers who train day-in day out, hour after hour. If I wanted amateur night, there's enough churches and back-street pubs round here to keep me occupied nightly.

I use the sporting analogy deliberately, because the 'common' or 'ordinary' person demands elitism in sport. I see no difference in Arts. It's like the Paralympics. Jimmy said he's not interested in people in wheelchairs achieving this that and the other. I made out to be all right-on and po-faced. Simple fact, I didn't watch the Paralympics, yet I never turned the telly off for the Olympics.

I think it says a lot about the inherent sexism in society - that women have no value other than as decorative objects. But I also think Cowell Morgan and Holden are total frauds for letting the audience think they are genuinely surprised when, obviously, they heard her at auditions and, probably, rehearsals.

I actually think it's just a bit sick, and probably just a guise to get people to vote on a premium rate phone-line (or else ITV would go bust). Fine, she's going to make a CD and earn a fortune (less expenses, less percentages to agent, manager, stylist, PR agency, TV placer, advertising agency, backing band, session singers,). Given the opportunity, would I turn it down? No. But to think that there are people out there who will actually buy the CD, like, as if there's a shortage of MOR singers singing West End hits! Ah well, their money, their waste!

Dear Diary, again

Those who follow me on Twitter and/or Facebook will know that I had a spill from my bike today. The only surprising thing is that this is the first since I got it seven months ago. It was my own stupid fault, the details are tedious, suffice to say that I swerved at speed to avoid a tree and hit a railway sleeper (that had been laid down to mark the path).

The worst aspect was the dent to my ego and the realisation that it is much harder to take a tumble at 41 than at 14. No great damage done, other than a trembly feeling that took some time to go. I have a grazed knee and a few sore points that will turn into bruises by tomorrow or Wednesday. I broke one fingernail, but not seriously - not down to the quick, or loss of blood or anything. My toenails hurt when slammed against the front of my trainers. The best bit was that I bumped my head. Not in any serious way, but I did wonder, if I hadn't been wearing a helmet would it have hurt a bit? If I carried on hurting during the week would I develop hyperchondria? A cycle helmet is never going to save one from a collision with a 12 ton lorry but it takes the hassle out of trivial spills.

Then Pewari twittered me some virtual medicinal wine, which inspired me to demand gin, large and several, which then caused much of the rest of the evening to descend into farce, as I randomly misplaced kitchen utensils and became extremely philosophical about science, religion and social science (a programme recorded a few weeks ago where Professor Colin Blakemore theorised that one day, science will replace religion - I exclaimed that that was a typical scientist's reaction when any social scientist will know that people behave irrationally, want something that one might call a crutch, or social networking, or community, or comfort.

My take on Gross and Bland

I have mixed feelings. I don't trust the Daily Mail and their agenda. On the other hand, I think that Jonathan Ross is a talentless overpaid tosser. And at least now I know what Russell Brand is. Apparently he's a comedian. I remember when a definition of a comedian included humour.

I'm really not frightfully bothered about the substance of what happened. I think obscene phone calls are illegal. I think nuisance calls are illegal. I also think there are laws against recording telephone calls and replaying them without permission. I doubt that what they did breached any of those laws. And I think people who are in the public eye have to accept that, almost by definition, they surrender at least some of the privacy rights that the rest of us value.

I have to say I am flummoxed that there appears to be a whole set of people, not just Gross and Bland, who think that what they did was amusing or entertaining. I don't mean that particularly in a disapproving way. Children get amusement by ringing people up and saying swear words, but I doubt this was intended as children's entertainment. I've got a bit bored reading about Jonathan Ross being 'cutting edge'. I thought at Live 8 he was dated and irrelevant with his homophobic remarks, and reprehensible for his cynical attempt to cash in. I understand subsequently he has engaged in sexual innuendo. I'm struggling to think what's innovative or cutting edge about that. Edginess requires an element of original thought.

A large part of me is wondering what all the fuss is about, but an even larger part is salivating at the schadenfreude what is sort of hitting this waste of space. He gets paid more in a day than many people get in a year, and I can't work out why. He hosts a chat show that gets its audience from people wanting to see the famous guest. He hosts a film programme which is researched and written by other people. I'm not saying that anybody can do it, but Charlotte Church and Mark Kermode seem to manage okay, probably for a lot less money.

You kind of feel that certain parts of the BBC are like certain parts of the City: staffed by people who are clones of each other, appointed because of who they know or because they can work for free for six months, and totally oblivious to what happens outside their small circle-jerks, so divorced from reality that they actually think that playground nastiness is not only entertaining but funny.

Great nostalgia

London to Brighton in 4 minute, in the 1950s

And the 1980s colour update, in 3½ minutes

Nightmail

and the 1980s British Rail advert

Crap telly

Occasionally one can pinpoint a whole hour of your life you just won't get back.

I watched some rubbish on TV last night, some bloke travelling from Ireland to Australia. I am not quite sure what the premise other than to rack up various different means of transport. And making contrived whooping noises just to 'prove' he was like a boy that had never grown up. Total lamer.

Three things stood out.

1. How he put on a serious face to discuss Tibet, which couldn't disguise that he knew nothing and cared less
2. Approaching Liverpool he spots a building and says "Oh that's that's..." and turns to a mate who  says "It's the Liver building..."
3. He announces he's travelling in a Daimler that Queen Anne used to travel in. Of course she did, dear, of course she did.

Totally conceited programme. Supposedly, it's three blokes wending their intrepid way round the world using only their own ingenuity. Like, they crossed the Channel on a Laser dinghy (that's the sort Ben Ainslie won Gold with). All alone. And the camera panned away to show them, all alone. I thought it was dead clever the way they managed to get the camera so far away from the boat that it was almost like they had a support vessel.

Getting undressed

No, no calm down. I don't mean like that. I mean last night's Trinny and Susannah, about "Big Girls". I do find them very irritating as individuals thus I was a late and reluctant recruit to their bandwagon. But I do like their approach, much of it applied common sense, to dressing properly.

I do have my reservations. I could not help notice that the programme was sponsored by Littlewoods Catalogue, with the pre-and post-ad sequences featuring emaciated models. Their website has a tie-in for size 16+ with the clothes tastefully moderated by chunky size Six models and with a very limited range.

I could identify with many of the sentiments expressed by the women on the programme. It is ridiculous that so few shops cater for the reported 45% of the population who are size 16 and above. What many of the women seemed to be implying is that shops ought to stock a more normal size range as some sort of human right, or something. I disagree; I think it is bad business of any retail outlet to ignore so many potential customers.

As an accountant I am struggling to do the sums - if you deliberately or carelessly exclude between a third and a half of potential customers, you are reducing your potential sales by a similar factor. If, instead, you study the market and sell accordingly, broadly speaking you will increase your turnover by 50%-100%. No philosophy of human rights or pandering involved - sheer hard-headed business.

Supermarkets - not a sector I have any love for - are expanding and their profits soaring partly because they are sensitive to demand. Pubs are closing like nobody's business because they are stagnant, conservative, and inflexible, run by people who think they know better than customers what customers want. It amazes me how many businesses are run by people who don't have a clue about business.

One of the main points that came up was that it isn't sufficient to design outfits for a  skinny body and then scale them up. What is necessary is to design for the full figure, accentuating all the positives. I recall reading somewhere some years ago some wanky fashionista defending their use of emaciated models in fashion shows on the basis that their clothes don't look right on anybody of Size 10 or above.  I can't help thinking that that represents a design fault. Imagine designing a car that isn't suitable for motorway use, or a computer that can't connect to the internet. There may be niche markets for these but they are unfit for purpose in the general, mass market. Just like the clothes-for-waifs available on the High Street.

I imagine the Leaders and Shapers in Fashion, as in just about every industry, are divorced from their core customer. They exist in a narrow world obsessed by fashion and skinniness, little knowing that beyond their closed circle are women with disposable income who can't be bothered worrying about starving themselves, or are too busy to spend three hours a day in soul-destroying gym work. Women who are pre-occupied by their caseload, their P&L, their deadlines,  their caring responsibilities or their multifarious hobbies. The fashionistas, driving round, never mixing, think that all 'fat' women slob around in poverty and trackie bottoms.

A dozen or so years ago I wrote to Marks and Spencer  pointing out their lack of pretty or sexy bras above a C cup size. They wrote back stating there was no demand for such things. I wrote back asking for their evidence that there was no demand. I was demanding it. I suggested that, on the whole, women with boobs would see the absence of pretty or sexy bras, and either walk out or settle for the ugly matronly garments on offer without positively registering their demand. I never received a second reply. And like very many women I no longer buy bras at M&S.

There are many suppliers who have studied the market and realise what size women are, and what they want. In any case surely, M&S as capitalists, should have created demand for their products. Rather than making full-figured women think they have to be satisfied with the matronly products, shouldn't they do what Bravissimo, for example, do - tell women to celebrate our curves, flaunt what we've got and so on?

I see telly from the 70s and 80s, when, it seems, it was de rigeur to dress in the most androgynous way possible. I'm sorry but I never became a feminist in order to ape the behaviour of men; feminism is about valuing and celebrating women and all that is womanly. That applies to so-called female values/traits in the workplace and civil society; to celebrating women's bodies for their own sake not merely as men's playthings; and understanding that women individually and collectively have no less value than men as voters, consumers, users, patients etc, and that women individually and collectively should stop apologising when suppliers and providers fail to supply and provide what we want and need, and demand the best.

Not one of the retailers who bothered to show up was able to offer an explanation of why they either don't cater at all for full-figured women, or, if they do, their designs are hideous. It was a bit pathetic. If you can't spin your own product, what's your point?

It remains to be seen whether the High Street retailers get the point....

As a PS, if 45% of women are size 16 or above, doesn't that mean probably only about a third are under Size 14, of which a significant proportion will be children, so, really, those adult women who are size 12 and under are the abnormal freakish ones, who should perhaps be banished to specialised shops, leaving the proper shops for normal women?

Tonight's telly

Have you ever noticed that you wait ages for a TV programme about London Buses, then four or five come along at once?

Time for a rant

BBC NEWS | Education | Experts to champion better maths

I noticed this story earlier in the day but didn't pay it much attention.

I'm now sitting here at half seven, with the TV on in the background. BBC News 24. They just had a feature on this, with an interview with some or other expert. The expert made the point that many Primary School teachers are not comfortable with Maths. I resisted the temptation to think "A Primary School teacher who is uncomfortable with Primary School Maths is perhaps in the wrong job", because, what do I know?*

Then the coke-addled halfwit so-called 'journalist' on the BBC put a question to the expert. It started off half-sensible. Along the lines of, you'll be looking for people who love Maths to take on this role. then he went into a total wibble and giggling fit "Ha ha ha I suppose there are people out there who like Maths, strange people, giggle giggle, I can't imagine it, oh my word, Maths!!!!!"

What a total arsehole. Try substituting 'English' or 'Literacy', or 'Sport', into that, and think how utterly ridiculous it sounds. Who are these people, self-confessed innumerates, who get some position of influence and present a news bulletin broadcast before the watershed and think they have the right to mock people who are better than them? It's not a new phenomenon, but it does make me very angry.

I watched that drama about Mary Whitehouse the other day (on time-shift) and I did wonder if I am, in fact, turning into Mary Whitehouse, complaining about the piss-poor standards on the TV. But then I remembered, she was in favour of ignorance and oppression, I am in favour of knowledge and enlightenment, and I detest the way these cocky TV people assume their entire audience is thick. And I like swearing.

* I had one of those teachers in Junior 4, (now Year 6). She had the spiffing wheeze of getting the top people to teach ourselves. Not just in Maths, but also in English and History, too.

Ladette to Lady

I really really like this programme, although it contains a lot of elements of which I disapprove. It's Reality TV show, 'documentary' with very little of substance to be documented. It's a show that features people, and their weaknesses, without - I assume - paying them a wage for their time. It's a programme that shows some extremely bad behaviour but also illustrates the people who behave that way.

The last point applies especially to the headteacher, Mrs Hardcore. I have seen few people on TV - or in life - more snobbish than her. Her utter disdain for the behaviour and attitudes of the 'girls' (women, actually) even when it is moderate. Her knicker-wetting excitement that a dinner guest was a Baronet - a man of no distinction except being a successive elder son of an elder son of someone who bribed his way to an insignificant facsimile of a title centuries ago. I also don't like the voice-over commentary which describes the 'Eligible Batchelors' as 'Notorious Society blah-de-blah' which to my mind is loud, drunken, boorish and out-of-control, in other words, just like the common, female ladettes but male and posh. Or those twins being described as 'handsome' on account of being Ugly Trustafarians.

I had mixed feelings about the 'girls'. There was one who on the first day, after being told off, cried into her clandestine mobile phone and Mummy came to pick her up. She was on a Final Warning from Beauty College, and I was led to conclude that throughout her short and meaningless life she had been given her own way at every turn, and never been urged to stick at anything. There was the woman barred from every night club in Basildon (Basildon, I ask you!) who had never worked in her life. Jimmy wondered who was paying for her boozy lifestyle (over-indulgent parents); I wondered how inept one has to be to be unemployed in Basildon, not able even to hold down a basic shop job in Lakeside or the City.

Then there were the two Welsh women. One a nightclub bouncer, the other in the Territorial Army. Both jobs require a certain something. Bouncer, the ability to judge a situation, not to over react. The TA don't take just anybody. It requires discipline and taking orders, and staying cool under pressure. I could not understand why these women were so incapable of transferring those skills to everyday life.

I was troubled by the two youngest. They were both 18 and thus legally perfectly able to consent to being on Reality TV. But I did wonder whether they were old enough or mature enough to understand the possibly profound consequences of living under the gaze of the camera. And yet, these are the two who probably benefited the most from the programme. The young woman from Sheffield who wanted to be a lawyer yet kept deferring her A-Levels. It turned out that she was in emotional toil - meltdown - following an abortion and subsequent relationship breakdown. I felt the compassion with which Hardboiled Mrs Hardcore, and the cookery teacher Rosemary, handled her was exemplary.

And then we have Nicole, the ASBO'd ex-Druggie from Romford. Initially, we learnt that two brothers had died when she was young. I thought 'car crash' or somesuch. Turns out they both died of natural causes two years apart. Gradually, we got more and more hints at the impact of that unimaginable grief. As the weeks progressed, we saw a different person emerging, a hurt little girl becoming a woman. We saw her rediscover a previous love of horses, and I was delighted when she won. I found Mrs Hardcore's compassion to be immense, causing me to reflect that compassion and intolerance often go hand-in-hand. In order to be compassionate to the hurt and broken, one needs to have an instinctive understanding that they cannot help themselves. Which would make one impatient at people whose self-destruction is caused by laziness, greed, indiscipline or other human venalities.

All the ones that survived into the latter stages will take something valuable away from that. I am just very uncomfortable with two people's grief being exposed to hundreds of thousands - millions - of strangers. I also pause and wonder at how destructive some parents can be when they don't set boundaries, don't impose discipline, don't correct misbehaviour and don't make their children keep on trying for seemingly impossible goals.

I hope none of them actually turns into a Lady, because it's pretentious poppycock. But I hope that that sense of a goal and achieving something, and learning how to behave in public, and take the sensibilities of others into consideration, will make them into women of substance. I can see Louise the Glamour Model with the boob-job becoming a formidable business-woman. Nothing about her as shown on TV made me warm to her, but there seemed a steely determination hidden inside. Kelly from Basildon kept displaying behaviour that ought to have irritated me, but I couldn't find myself disliking her. The staff referred to her sense of humour, and it struck me that she was a warm person, a potential people's person, who would always be the life-and-soul of the party (for better and for worse...).

I don't like the premise of the programme, and I am frequently gob-smacked at the lack of life-experience/awareness that most of them display. So many object to be told what to do, oblivious that this is the reality of working life. Few of them can cook, nor do they seem to have have any knowledge of food. Or knowledge of anything. But then I look at the Posh people, and they are even more blinkered.

It seems so full of contradictions and it really must count as low-rent telly. But for some reason - editing, producing? - it manages to illustrate some fascinating aspects of the complexities of human nature.

Around the World in Eighty Gardens/Art of Spain

What I do like about the BBC is the way they put out these documentaries. It's what the BBC does best. I wonder how many people actually watch them. We have just finished catching up on Michael Palin's 'New Europe' and Michael Wood's 'History of India'. The Michaels get programmes with their names in, which even David Attenborough doesn't for his latest (which isn't for me, but Jimmy is watching it and I'm glad the Beeb is showing it). I loved Palin, and thought Wood was worthy. But very irritating, especially when he put on a pretend-Peter-Sellars-Indian accent when talking to Indians (other than academics).

I am sure that I read somewhere that these presenter-centred documentaries are the ultimate in dumb-downing. Well, they're not. I found Wood quite impenetrable and difficult to follow at times. As for Monty Don and his gardens - well, I thought he was nothing but a sidekick to the ghastly Titmarsh, but it turns out he's in a totally different class. I am not certain that I necessarily like all the gardens he has selected but it is teaching me stuff. About plants, about which I know very little, and about the countries in which the gardens are in, and about the culture and societies of those countries.

I have only watched one of the Art in Spain so far, about the Moorish invasion and occupation of what we now know as Andalusia.

Interestingly, I have found a common link between the programmes. That link is Islam. In their different ways, they are showing an insight into aspects of Islamic history which rarely gets an outing in more conventional discussions. and probably isn't known to the average jihadist, or even the nutters in the inner city mosques, in Europe, throughout the Middle East and into the sub-continent. We have been able to see the similarities in the design of Al-Hambra and Taj Mahal, and understand how Moslems peacefully co-existed with Christians and Jews in Al-Andalus and Former Yugoslavia and Albania, and how the Mughals, despite being Moslem, took on many aspects of the existing Hindu culture.

What is obvious in both India and Spain is how it was all ruined by the Christians. Christian armies of occupation or colonials looking for trading opportunities insisted on Christianity being the dominant - only - religion. And we wonder why the world is in such a mess today.

Ashes to Ashes

Watched the first episode last week. The jury is still out.

Absolutely loved Life on Mars, both series and looked forward to Ashes to Ashes. I don't know 1981 London any better than 1973 Manchester ie I was there but really quite clueless. But I know my 1981 Music. Oh yes! As it opened I really thought that someone had been going through my record collection. Starting with Vienna on Vinyl, followed by a poster advertising Prince Charming. Pretty smart for July 1981 seeing that the single wasn't actually available until September... (and if I recall correctly from Swap Shop, it was actually recorded in late July). It finished with a song. Naturally I knew it - Same Old Scene - but could I remember who had actually recorded it. To my shame I had to look it up in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles - Roxy Music, whom I never liked anyway. I hope I don't spend too much time looking in Guinness, because, trust me I will know every song that is played.

I have yet to decide about the drama. Obviously the premise and format are much the same, the ultimately unexplained time-travelling whilst in a coma. So far I can't see where it's going, but Gene Hunt is back! And, frankly, even if it turns out to be a turkey, or relatively turkeyish compared to LoM, who can't forgive a TV production company for that 'bound to be iconic' shot of Gene and sidekicks motoring down the Thames, Tower Bridge in the background, with guns at the ready. One of those TV moments that one just has to stand up and applaud.

TV thoughts

I have been enjoying The Palace, finding it surprisingly convincing and realistic (which is not to say I think it is perfectly authentic but there have been few howlers than I expected). But last night's was really dreadful. I thought that they had proper ex-Buck House people advising them, but last night's was so full of howlers that anybody who watched the Monarchy Propaganda Brainwashing job last autumn as I did (Know Your Enemy...) could have stacked up the howlers:

• State Banquets are Evening Suit. They are so Evening Suit that even Gordon "I don't do White Tie" Brown could only get out of Evening Suit by wearing a kilt and Gordon ain't never go to wear a kilt. I suppose it's possible that the new King would have abolished Evening Suit, but you would have thought it would have been discussed. And Princess Sloane still wouldn't have worn a Primark Dress even if Evening Suit had been abolished
• Posh Tory Totty from Party Animals would never have turned up late for a meeting with the King citing 'I got stuck at work' as an excuse especially when the meeting was about work. And 5pm meeting about work would never have turned into dinner, just like that
• The new chef would not have f***ed up on the crockery for serving dinner because there is a 'to-do' list for State Banquets which is checked, double checked and quite possibly triple checked. It wouldn't be left to the new chef to busk it
• A State Banquet for India (a very important country indeed) would not be Palace Employees and a handful of token Indians cramped round one long table in a pokey room. Try The Great and The Good (eg where was the Prime Minister, no, not Gordon, the fictional one), Eminent Indians in Britain, CEOs etc of companies with Trading Partnerships with India, and lots of lots of Indians, in a massive State Banqueting Room with dozens of tables seating dozens each. Guests wouldn't wander into dinner at the sound of a flunky saying 'Right folks, get stuck in, grub's up'. Maybe there would be a formal walk-in to pass The Receiving Line
• if that diamond necklace was so important to Gujeratis, and normally stored in The Tower, the Royal Jeweller wouldn't casually pass it to Princess Sloane to take back to Queen Mummy Bitter to casually pass to King WetBlanket
• Royals don't drink out of cheap 1960s Habitat red glasses
• There is no way that the King would offer to fund an orphanage for abandoned girls in Madras without causing a diplomatic incident - for starters, he meant Chennai, and secondly, it is an implied criticism of Indian society and an insult to the Government, who claim not to want International Aid, anyway

Which is a shame, because it's been a hoot so far. And it's fun spotting the DNA links between this, Party Animals and Mistresses. I haven't been too bothered thus far with some stretching of truths and realities, but last night was so riddled with them, it dragged the batting average right down.

Shut down Grange Hill

Shut down Grange Hill, says its creator

I have to confess that I haven't watched Grange Hill since the illegal invasion of Iraq shifted it from BBC1 to BBC2, before the days of Personal Video Recorders and building up a backlog of programmes to watch, I abandoned it with only a small amount of regret.

Admittedly, reaching the age of 35 is probably as good a reason as any to give up a Children's TV programme, but having watched it from its beginning when I was just about to go into what we called Junior 4, the final year before secondary school, and having watched almost every episode, if not when initially transmitted than on the Sunday morning repeats through the 90s I am a a bit of an expert on Grange Hill.

It went horribly wrong when it moved to Liverpool. I am now saddened and a bit shocked to read that its target audience is 6-12 year olds. I know that children nowadays are more worldly-aware than my contemporaries were at corresponding ages, but the attraction of Grange Hill, whether I was ten or 34 was that they didn't flinch from hard-hitting themes. Even today, I don't think that some of the issues they dealt with in my teens are particularly appropriate for children. This somewhat contradicts my view that children are usually more knowledgeable than adults think. I also don't think that controversial storylines are particularly harmful for children. I think their intellectual grasp of narrative runs well ahead of their emotional capacity, and in any case, what upsets children is often surprising - certain people of my acquaintance decided that they didn't want Father Christmas walking round their bedrooms unsupervised. I don't think anybody would seriously suggest shielding children from the dangers of the Father Christmas story. But I don't imagine that a series that is aimed at 6-12 year olds is going to feature the issues that made Grange Hill a Must Watch for my contemporaries in our teens.

And yet, what is Grange Hill without the controversies? Well, actually, a lot. Better character development than many soaps. A demonstration that so-called Demonised Youth, just like adults, contain a mixture of the good, the bad and mainly, people with complex personalities and worries. I have had criticisms of individual story lines, and Grange Hill contained its fair share of that aspect of too much television - laziness revealing a lack of knowledge of life in the Real World Outside Media.

If Grange Hill is no longer hard-hitting, and is no longer set in a school, it isn't Grange Hill. Scrap it now.

Mistresses, whaddidithink?

I am not sure about the premise of mid-forties women gadding around like recent graduates; perhaps when I'm that old, life will seem less tiring and I'll be having confidential tetes a tete over wine. But,somehow, I doubt it.

Some incongruities eg a GP having half hour appointment slots. They don't. My GP doesn't, anyway, because he always has the PC screen on display so I can see who's due in, who has failed to turn up and the diagnosis of those who have bothered. Appointments are 6 minutes. And my brother says locums can be useful because they are enthusiastic about taking their time to listen to patients, which is a luxury he can't afford.

I'm also not sure that a rich lawyer type would be relying on mucus and temperature when she could just pop to her neighbourhood independent pharmacy and buy an ovulation test kit - and surely the GP friend would have recommended that, even if the husband's book omitted it (unlikely in a book devoted to conception). Still, not as bad as that ridiculous premise in Lead Balloon the other week when a publicly listed company went bankrupt as a direct and immediate result of the share price falling...

I wasn't sure about the tastefulness of one of them being widowed in the September 11 attacks, but that's because the so-called dead husband will come back just as she's getting all down and dirty with the bloke who would be more attractive if he didn't look and behave exactly like that smarmy git Tory MP in Party Animals. If he was genuinely dead, it ought to have been, if not in the obvious but credible cliché of a road crash than at least in an industrial accident or when mountaineering/pot-holing/hand-gliding. Otherwise it is too much open to justifiable accusations of trivialising a real and specific tragedy.

I knew that the dull gauche office junior would make a pass at the lawyer woman. And it was so obvious that the serial shagger is going to end up in bed with one (or both) of the civil partnership couple, who must be the femmest dykes in the entire history of TV.

It will be interesting to see where it goes. If it deals with the euthanasia, the infertility, and other grown-up issues in a mature but entertaining way it might be quite classy, but if it's all Blackberrys, expensive lingerie and Starbucks (dated, provincial, downmarket), it will soon become tiresome.

A week in TV

It's just an experiment, I don't know if it will last. But for as long as the enthusiasm lasts, I shall publish a list, plus capsule review, of everything I watched on TV. Properly watched that is, not multitudinous glimpses of news screens at work, or TV programmes that happened to be on while I was in the room doing something else.

January
1

• Midsomer Murders: delightfully predictable and whimsical; it's carnage out there
• Jam and Jerusalem - reminds me to be grateful I don't live in the sticks and have to join these ghastly 'guilds' to get a social life. Not actually comedy, but rescued as light character drama by the excellent Sue Johnston, and potentially Jennifer Saunders who would be a very good actor if she dropped the delusion of comedy

2

• Time-shifted Sense and Sensibility dull and worthy, safe and unchallenging, no expectations of action or profound insights or chacterisation; bring back Elizabeth Gaskell, wondering if any Brontës have been serialised in my lifetime

3

• Lead Balloon
second series has gone steadily downhill; no need for a third. Bored of the self-centred Spleens, but feel there might be scope for a spin-off featuring Michael and Magda, the more fascinating characters

4

• All the Presidents' Men (time-shifted) - fascinating glimpse of history (Watergate); almost as fascinating to witness the 1970s way of working, and wonder if there is any scope nowadays for tenacious diligent investigation, and how does 'fact checking' fit into a 24 hour news agenda
• Jam and Jerusalem - some excellent character portrayals sitting on a top of a tedious unfunny narrative; wondering if TV-people would be brave enough to commission work that portrays characters without either (intended) humour or catastrophe/tragedy
• Ladder 49 - lame drama and a missed opportunity to make something worthwhile, could have done without the sentimentality; think that John Travolta always looks and sounds like he's about to burst into tears. An over-rated one-dimensional actor

5 showed me to be an inveterate Couch Potato. Bizarrely, I missed Manchester United beating Aston Villa but devoted the evening to three very different films

• Five Easy Pieces...this was on the curriculum of the ridiculous 'Film Studies' course I took at University. Watching it nearly 20 years later, I can't help thinking it is pretentious 'w*nk'. Sure, Jack Nicholson is good, when is he ever not, but I think the 'concept' of the five easy pieces was a conceit, and I had an uneasy feeling it actually related to the women that Nicholson shagged (with two left on the cutting room floor)
• Raising Arizona - I can't believe I have never seen this before, but I found it delightful - difficult to pigeon hole, comedy, but one that does not need lame puns, witty one-liners, slapstick or zany escapades, rather creating comedy from the situation and the characters
• Cocktail is quite possibly the worst film I have seen in years. Tom Cruise is wooden, hammy and hysterically histrionic all at the same time, I can't believe that at the time he was being spoken about in hushed tone as an actor of significance; hon mensh to Bryan Brown for looking like a dickhead impersonating someone's embarrassing dad dancing at a family wedding; cardboard cut-out paint by numbers characters, narrative with far too many howlers, and a mise en scene that was just gruesome in its mindless celebration of late Eighties vacuity. A convincing performance by Elizabeth Shue who I have otherwise not heard of, but actually seems to have a decent CV despite Cocktail

6

• Sense and Sensibility - more tedium disguised by sumptuous costumes, lavish settings and decent acting. Nothing happens. Impossible to feel any sympathy for the characters. Clearly, there is something amiss with me, because it is a truth universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is a great writer. Her books are excellent cures for insomnia and the TV adaptations are just drivel and an excuse for Middle England to aspire to intellectuality while wallowing in soap predictability. Coming so soon after the brilliantly written and superbly produced and acted Cranford just underlines the inanity of the story. 'Roll on, Echo Beach', I say.
• The Devil Wears Prada Damages, where Glenn Close takes up where Meryl Streep left off in a convincing portrayal of an appallingly misogynistic stereotype of 'if a woman is successful, it stands to reason she must be a bitch'. Dated, clichéd, unimaginative... Still, on the evidence of the first episode, it is tautly written, and with it conducted in two separate time lines, it makes one eager to find out what led to the events in the flash-forward. The Sky+ is set...

7

• Time-shifted West Wing Not one of the better episodes, and one that I watched first time round. I'm not sure where I get to see new stuff that I missed because of idiot scheduling decisions.

Panicking parents

I am actually in the process of writing along post about various TV things viewed, with capsule reviews, but for some strange reason, I got suckered into watching two programmes tonight about safety. One was Panorama, about net safety for children. The other was a programme about road rage, and the competing needs of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. The net one was Panorama and was presented in a hysterical hectoring style; the other was as far as I'm aware just a programme, lacking a 'banner'.

Obviously a lot of what is said about net safety needs to be said, even though it's common sense. Stuff like not allowing children to have web access in their bedrooms, for them to be told that that not everyone is how they seem on the net and so on. I know that it is pretty horrible to be deluged with obscenities, even as an adult, and I am under no illusion as to the length that a paedophile will go once they have their target. Even I, who consider myself to be worldly-wise was shocked at some 16 year old boy who had 'performed a sex act' on webcam for payment. Not that he did it, but that he seemed perfectly happy to tell this to random strangers, relatives, school friends and so on, via national TV. I think that's prostitution, isn't it?

The road rage programme showed the 'school run' in Hampstead. Hampstead, of course, is a very prosperous area of London. People pay a premium to live there, and then, so it seemed, they then all send their precious brats to fee-paying schools. And, of course, they have enormous cars to take them their. It was really quite hilarious. One man, who was titled 'doctor' (might be medical, might not be, if so, god help his patients) gets into an oversize vehicle with three children - not seat-belted - to take them 300 yards down the road, his excuse being they are too young to walk that far. I used to walk that distance to get to the bus stop for the school bus at age 5. I wonder about the precarious state of the marriages of these dreadful people. One woman was being confrontational with a traffic warden for her parking ticket - her reason being that if she gets too many parking tickets her husband stops it out of her clothes' money (I nearly fell off the sofa laughing).

But the best was some bloke in a Cherokee Jeep, He has been to anger management classes at his wife's insistence (my god, I want the back story - obviously guilty of domestic violence, wonder if it's 'just' the wife or also the kids he beats to a pulp). Having been to anger management classes the man was obviously trying very hard to control his rage - and failing. He was fuming at the bin lorry, he was fuming at a builder's lorry delivering. No doubt he would be livid if his rubbish wasn't collected, or his builders didn't deliver, and would go and beat the wife and kids, because it's only that, and the hilarious drug-dealer's car that make him feel like a 'real man'. He also said his wife doesn't like the car, basically she hates and mocks what it stands for. How I love to see the sheer misery the smug rich endure in order to maintain status. If someone wrote a fiction about his sort of person, they'd be accused of exaggeration, or creating a caricature, or having an agenda.

But what struck me with both programmes was an absence of personal responsibility and a mixture of ignorance and something tantamount to neglect that characterised both programmes. The underlying message of the first one being a wake-up call to the complacent, a gentle suggestion that while it might be modern and trendy to leave children to bring themselves up, it isn't actually wise. And in the second one, illustrating how these ghastly Hampstead types lacked the basic intelligence to understand that 'the problem' ie their perception of dangerous and over-crowded roads, and the very real examples of dangerous driving outside their expensive prep school, is not something that has happened in a vacuum, that they are absolutely part of the problem. Nor did any of them seem to have the native intelligence and wit to come up with a workable solution, just 'me, me, me'. Seriously, this is densely populated Hampstead, with, I think they said, 23 schools within a square mile. It's not the Outer Hebrides. And presumably those same children, who are being chauffeured around in the expensive penis-substitutes are exactly the same neglected children left to come across images of real penises on their bedroom-based computers supervised only by an immature underpaid 'Nanny' from Bulgaria or Bosnia while their callous, complacent, negligent parents carry on with their social climbing and posing.

It also made me laugh that these people agreed so readily to go on TV. They probably thought that it would be an opportunity to put their case, whatever their case is - widen the roads? flatten some houses? get everyone else in the same boat to kow-tow to 'me, me, me'. I would have thought that any halfway intelligent person would know by now the dangers of allowing 'documentary' TV to expose your inner moron. And yet, they keep doing it!

Today

It's kind of a fixture in my life, has been, on-and-off since Sixth Form. A habitual way to wake up. Over the years I have had periods of aversion and I don't tend to listen on my days-off. But it's the Today Programme, coming up to its fiftieth birthday in the autumn.

On the whole, it does quite a lot right, but there is very little blog material in listing the stuff it does right. A year or two back, I was in conversation with Doctor Little Brother who bemoaned the ignorance about Science in the mainstream media, singling out 'Today' for criticism. I don't think he felt that Today was a uniquely bad offender, rather that a aims to be programme that aims to be at the forefront of journalistic standards ought to be better. His contention was that if people in general knew as much about science as they do about Politics they would join him in despairing at the low level of scientific knowledge.

Not necessarily disagreeing with him I observed that the actual level of knowledge about actual politics amongst so-called political journalists is nothing to be proud of. again, singling out 'Today' seems unfair because they are probably less sinning than most.

This came back to me yesterday in a feature on/interview with an officer from Mole Valley council about plans for a hostel to house families of service personnel in rehab. I would hazard a guess that up and down the land, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people with experience of the Planning Process. I accept that each council operates the process slightly differently, and that the issues in each case are different. However, I got the distinct impression from yesterday's programme that the Today posse felt that Planning Committees are a completely alien process. The thrust of the interview was that surely this could have been settled weeks ago without a row breaking out. The officer sounded surprised by the suggestion.

Obviously, I can't speak for Mole Valley but councils in general try to make the Planning Process fairly transparent. It seems a lot of people don't know that it is technically a 'quasi-judicial' process meaning that it isn't purely about the numbers on either side of the debate. The local residents were consulted, and expressed their views. Often residents express views that are irrelevant to Planning Law. Often politicians are swayed by the possible electoral implications of granting permission to a perfectly legitimate application against a groundswell of local opposition (some of it rational, some of it emotional, some of it whipped up for dubious reasons).

I don't think that it's the role of National Radio habitually to cover local issues, but it does make me despair when this level of ignorance of basic process is paraded as quality news coverage. Also the basic principle of jurisprudence of allowing everyone a fair hearing is not one that should be skated over blithely. My brother posited the theory that few journalists have even a basic degree in science; I would say that very few seem to have a basic background in the processes that may be local, even parochial, but are the bread-and-butter of how 'politics' affects the every day lives of everyday people.

More importantly, I realised with some horror that there is a problem of possible national impact. I wake up to Today on the radio alarm, and generally turn it off before going downstairs and opening it from the website. Yesterday I did not do that, and realised that the two feeds were not in sync. this was slightly annoying when there was a pause for breath downstairs and I could hear words from upstairs. Slightly more irritating when there were two different voices, and slightly more irritating again when the voices were of different genders. The crunch came at 8.00 am (approximately) when there were two distinct broadcast of the Greenwich Time Signal. Upstairs had finished before downstairs began. I concluded that the web stream must be delayed by a few seconds. I then pondered whether the FM stream is also delayed (for the elimination of swearing), and I recalled when upstairs and downstairs terrestrial FM streams seemed out of sync for a few minutes a year or so ago.

Years ago my friend was auditing the National Physics Laboratory with the atomic clock. I asked her for a precise reading in order to put my watch right. She suggested that, for my purposes, the Greenwich Time Signal was sufficiently accurate. I had to concede she was probably right. But now, I'm wondering - what is the Greenwich Time signal? And is this perhaps the beginning of the end of the world?

Paul Potts....

I have found the weirdest thing on You Tube. An amateur singer with a wispy whiny voice, no heft and lots of wobbles sung Nessun Dorma on some ITV talent show the other day

The video has been watched like 1.3 million times (more than one upload) and has attracted 5,000 comments, over 90% of them being hysterically over the top, saying he is the greatest singer ever. Well, I suppose if you have never heard anything but cRap in your life, anyone who can more-or-less hold a tune is so out of your experience, that, without any valid comparators at all, you are likely to wet your pants. Good Luck to the guy. He's rubbish, but there you go.

Another moan

From time to time, I make a point of watching all three main news bulletins on BBC1 - One, Six and Ten O'Clock. This is best done on a slow news day. It can be a fascinating experience, because you feel watching the One O'Clock that they are sitting there thinking - it's just pensioners and housewives can you hear me dear I said it's the news that's right Mr Blair, yes Blair, he's the Prime Minister.

At six o'clock it's all about the 'typical family'. Let's explain this to you of limited intelligence by making really simplistic analogies with the disposable income of a random atypical household. By ten o'clock, the news is being analysed for intelligent people who can hold two thoughts and play two roles simultaneously.

Natasha Kaplinsky is simply not up to the job. I watched her interview Caroline Flint. As a Labour Party member I thought it was wonderful; as a voter who expects journalists to hold ministers to account, it was a abysmal. Caroline Flint might as well have given a speech. A couple of times Kaplinsky tried to interrupt, but Caroline went on full flow, totally on message, getting all the right soundbites out. I'm not sure what idiot thinks the public needs a low-IQ dolly bird interviewing a government minister. One who usually makes a hash of reading the news from an autocue.

There again it's health service. Not difficult scientific procedures, just public service provision. Well, not even that, just one 'human interest' story of how some health trusts are cutting back in order to manage their deficits. We have a glamorous female minister, hey let's have a glamorous female newsreader interview us, because that's part of the BBC's mission - to entertain. Even on the News. Let's not present the facts about health trust deficits. Let's not investigate the conflict between balanced budgets and unlimited provision. Let's not find out who makes the decisions and on what grounds (and let's not even examine why the budgets are in deficit). You're watching at six o'clock? Don't worry about these dry points, they're for the important people who are still at work at six o'clock (haven't they heard of flexible working, home working; don't they know that the retired or ill, or full-time mothers have brains?)

Later was the news of the death of Ian Richardson. According to the reporter, House of Cards symbolised the Major Years. Er, well, no not exactly. House of Cards ran parallel to the fall of Thatcher. That was why (apart from being a great drama superbly acted) it is regarded as such a landmark in TV drama.

But my story of how the news improves during the evening falls down as a result of last night's Newsnight, a so-called debate on the Press Release by Marie Stopes Rise in abortions after Christmas. According to those debating it, it was entirely due to the greater number of 'children' binge drinking. Earlier in the day someone had said that January (post Christmas) and September/October (post holidays) are the peak times for abortions, and, intuitively, that makes sense. They gave a pile of statistics, but they did not seem particularly connected to the news story. And certainly the statistics for women up to age 24 doesn't seem to have any relevance to children binge drinking, which was the thrust of the non-debate. I'm appalled at the idea of a fifteen year old binge drinking, shagging the nearest passing boy, and having to have an abortion. But I also know that women in their 30s, 40s, even 50s have abortions, for all sorts of reasons.

It is actually a very complex issue. In general, people on telly can't handle statistics, they especially don't know how to discount seasonal and demographic variations. No one asked whether the age range of fertile women is increasing. In fact there was no critical analysis at all, just a load of hand-wringing of the "Isn't it awful someone should do something about it" variety. I was stunned at the pointlessness of the whole exercise so for the first time ever I submitted a comment to the Newsnight blog - number 18; I also commend 22 Leslie and 24 Jennifer.

Tangentially, I am thinking of embarking on an experiment. I have a theory that the BBC News Have your Say boards select the most illiterate, inarticulate, irrational and pointless submissions, ignoring those with proper spelling and grammar, let alone those that present a logical or evidenced argument. I am considering submitting one of each to various threads under different IDs and compare the success rate.

Little things that annoy me

I know it's not important, and I don't want to be one of those people who write into Points of View/Radio Times complaining about a non-salient point of a TV drama.

Watching Waking the Dead the other night. They were interviewing a former Cabinet Minister, who mentioned that he had been working on a White Paper that had a Second Reading.

Wait on, I thought, White Paper: Second Reading. I don't think so. I know about Parliamentary procedure. But then I got to doubting my own knowledge. I ended up googling and wikipeding, and, of course, I was right. But there again, I ought to be right about the basic noddy stuff of Politics. But, surely, other people know this. Should I be surprised/shocked/appalled that seemingly, not one person involved in the making of Waking the Dead doesn't know something so basic? Surely I can't be the only viewer who has a basic understanding of Parliamentary Democracy.

Sometimes, I allow for poetic licence. Watching the Bill and seeing someone run down my road, and turn the corner onto a Thameside Path; this is a fictional portrayal of fictional Sun Hill. It's amusing but no more incongruous than the fact that time passes a lot more quickly on telly than in Real Life. Genuine continuity errors are funny - the famous episode of Yes Minister when Bernard's tie changed radically mid-conversation without human intervention.

I get annoyed at dated portrayals. Like in Judge John Deed, when various Senior Officials are all portrayed as dour men in grey suits, in cellular offices. Or when TV tries to portray an office setting, and has everybody talking fervently evangelically slightly rapidly and a bit breathlessly. Have they ever been in an office? I have never yet seen a portrayal of a local councillor and/or local politics that bears the slightest resemblance to reality. Don't they do their research? Dialogue in Eastenders is hysterically funny, all these half-wits sounding like they've been 20 rounds in psychotherapy and are so in touch with their feelings and able to articulate them in long words.

But paradoxically, I can take the unrealistic dialogue in most drama. The fact that everybody is capable of stringing words together coherently and logically. I don't know anybody who does that unfailingly. Even when I'm being articulate and in full flow, with someone a friend or a colleague who's likewise, we don't have a chess game of perfectly formed sentences and phrases. Sometimes we talk over each other; sometimes there's a verbal shorthand; half-expressed thoughts clarified by facial expressions or hand waving; misunderstandings quickly rectified; stroking words put in; someone momentarily dropping the concentration to take a sip of tea or wine. It's how it happens in real life, but I think it would make really bad TV.

I know ultimately these things don't matter, compared to how the drama plays and resolves or how the characters are portrayed.

But it still bugs me that they get basic facts wrong. Facts that everybody ought to know, and if they don't, they have no business writing about them in a Prime Time drama series.

"The young" won't co-operate

Innocence lost on BBC1 viewers

It was meant to be the young and vibrant drama series to catch the all-important youth audience and be the hit of the autumn

"All-important?" Why? We are repeatedly being told that we have an ageing population, that 'young people' are as likely to watch DVDs or webcontent as TV, and it's not like the BBC needs the impressionable "young" to sell adverts to.

• Has 22.5 per cent of the audience share
• Costume dramas Bleak House and Jane Eyre, and drama series Life on Mars
• Returned Panorama to prime-time slot.

If "Young People" are incapable of watching - and enjoying - Bleak House, Jane Eyre, and Life on Mars, so what? I'm sure that, in actual fact, many 'young people' did watch those programmes, and do watch Football, Have I Got News For You, Planet Earth, Strictly Come Dancing etc. And I'm sure many more watch Coast, Simon Shama on Art, Catherine Tate and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.

Young people will start watching TV when their energy levels run out, or when they settle down into relationships, with children, or when they find that housing costs prohibit 'going out'. Meanwhile, can us grown-ups have more telly for us, please.

Wannabe

For a long time, I have been closely associated with Dawn French.

I say 'closely associated' but I don't want anybody to think I'm name dropping. I've never actually met Dawn, and I would hate anyone, least of all her, to think I am inappropriately name-dropping.

But Google my real name, and you are confronted with very many Vicar of Dibley references. One Comic Relief night I was curled up on my sofa, and the Lovely Dawn came on, dressed in a identical pair of pyjamas to those I was wearing.

However, I have decided that I am no longer in my Dawn French phase. I want to be Jennifer Saunders. I want to be scary. And in a few years I want to be Sue Johnston.

The first episode of Jam and Jerusalem looked promising. League of Gentlemen for middle-aged women. And why not! Oh, Joanna Lumley is really quite gorgeous in it (I'm kidding...!). It remains to be seen whether subsequent episodes manage to run with the ball or peter off in a damp squib. It probably won't appeal to achingly-trendy cutting-edge emotionally-illiterate culturally-vacuumed twenty-somethings, but frankly who gives a toss when the whole of the rest of the media is given over disproportionately to this group, not because of their taste and judgement, but because of their utter gullibility to the advertising and the fake lifestyle it pimps. I mean, who would aspire to the Ladies League, or want to live in Clatterford St Mary any more than they would in Royston Vasey?

One of the many nice things about getting older is that I no longer watch TV drama (or sitcom) through aspirational eyes, but objectively enjoying the portrayal of alien yet spookily familiar characters. Back in the days, one was supposed to declare which member of the 'Friends' or 'Sex in the City' cast one most resembled. As if those shallow cretins were something to look up to...I mean, honestly. There's no one in Jam and Jerusalem to aspire to. Except Jennifer Saunders. And Sue Johnson. Oh, and I suppose, Joanna Lumley, too.

I sometimes feel...

...that my past is catching up on me.

First I read that Daniel Ortega has been elected President of Nicaragua, then I discover that Jason Donovan will be on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here*.

And I'm ambivalent about both facts.

In the 1980s I identified in solidarity with the Sandanistas in Nicaragua. My support ranged from attending the marvellous Puerto Cabezas Festival in Manchester - twin cities, natch - to buying and displaying t-shirts and mugs with variations on the theme of "Nicaragua No Paseran!". I kind of regret that I was never adventurous enough to actually go to Nicaragua.

But I read How I woke up and smelt the coffee, which left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Reportedly, Bush was going to impose sanctions on Nicaragua if Ortega was elected, which seems all too reminiscent of the 1980s: we were in solidarity with Nicaragua not because we necessarily thought it was a socialist nirvana, but because we were angry at the overt and covert action by a corrupt US Government determined to destroy a democracy that was of the 'wrong' hue. Just like they are determined to destroy the popularly elected and socialist Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Maybe one day Bush will learn the awkward truth that people are perfectly entitled to vote other than the way he and his bullying cronies want them to...

...Democrats seize control of House, Virginia key to US Senate control...

And I'm not sure that I can bring myself to watch the awfulness that is reality TV. I did try to watch Lee Sharpe on Celebrity Love Island, but I never made it past the first commercial break. I can understand why the celebs do it - easy money and an upturn in name-recognition. But it doesn't mean I am obliged ot watch it, or to acknowledge its existence, or care about what happens, or accord it any importance, even in the relative squalor of low-rent telly. But as a former member of the Jason Donovan Fan Club, as well as the Lee Sharpe Fan Club, it seems a betrayal.

I've heard Donald Rumsfeld has some time on his hands. Maybe he fancies a spot on a celebrity reality TV show. Probably be better if he turned prison visitor, though, go and cheer up his old mate Saddam.

* impressed or what - what other blogger do you know who could write an almost cogent blogpost linking Daniel Ortega and Jason Donovan?