Oche morons
HENDERSON
There are days when one wonders whether, as Lawrence wrote, the cataclysm has happened and we are living among the ruins. It was possible, one morning last week, to turn on the idiot-box and watch an effeminate solipsist mincing about in a Thames-side studio (BBC 1), a children's programme presented by poorly shod youths with electric-shock haircuts (BBC 2) and, most horrible of all, a five-star collection of pedigree chumps, their ugly faces distorted by mutual detestation, grunting at each other for the benefit of fellow inadequates in the audience, who were encouraged to consider themselves part of the `entertainment' (ITV). And all this before noon!
Then one learns from Michael Kennedy's review of a performance by the National Youth Orchestra that this superb band requires £800,000 each year to stay afloat. The Arts Council isn't interested. These youngsters are dedicated to the misguided pursuit of truth and beauty. They speak the language of Mozart, Schubert and Wagner; in other words, the greatest tongue known to man. If they were a multiracial troupe of transsexual graffiti artists, they would be showered with coins and earn a place in Estelle Morris's good books for being `inclusive' and `diverse'. As Peter Hall has said, ours is a philistine country that loves the arts.
There was another wondrous sight on the box this week, prized by all students of modern British life. The BBC sports unit travelled mob-handed to the World Darts Championship in Frimley Green, which is apparently a lakeside 'leisure complex' in Surrey, and, my word, they really went to town. Led by Ray Stubbs, an earnest, not terribly bright Liverpudlian who always looks as if he has wet himself but is too timid to ask teacher for permission to be 'excused', they gave darts the big-screen treatment. There was music (after a fashion), pizza77 and other noisy attempts to pass off these one-dimensional, tongue-tied 'darters' as personalities. I'm afraid you have to do more than wear a big chain, or turn some other thin visual trick, to achieve that status.
There is a limit to how much waffle one can take from an expert (in this case Bobby George, the man with the chain) about the psychology of darting. (`The break may do the boy good. Or it may not'.) For goodness sake, the players take it in turns to throw three times at a board, as they count down from 501. There is no psychology in such a simple exercise. This is not really sport at all, no matter how much people may bump it up. It is a pastime undertaken, in the main, by thirsty, overweight men in pubs, and was famously lampooned by Mel Smith in an amusing TV sketch two decades ago. Nothing has changed since then, except the eagerness of broadcasters to throw a storm of stardust over the performers. Stubbs tried, how he tried, but his exchanges with George were excruciating. Not since the Flowerpot Men charmed children four decades ago have two people spoken so much on the telly to such little purpose.
Bear in mind that all this went out on BBC 2, which was once the province of ambitious programmes about music and literature. Now that Jane Root (the Boot) is in charge, its motto is give 'ern muck'. Coming next, one hears, is a search for the top ten celebrity chefs. with Dale Winton proposing Alfred the Great CI just love his red-hot poker.). Cummings was right. 'Infinity pleased our parents. One inch looks good to us.'
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