Television
Priorities
Richard Ingrams
If politics is a matter of priorities, the same must be true also of television. Quite obviously the BBC does not regard commenting on current events as one of its main duties. Last week, the week of the collapse of the Social Contract and the publication of the House of Commons Poulson report, to name only two items, the BBC had no programme on the air with the exception of Panorama, on which such matters might have been discussed. Both Tonight, the ramshackle Insomniacs' Special on BBC 1 and BBC 2's Newsday are currently off the air for no better reason that I can see than that it is the summer. A weird idea persists in Fleet Street and also, I suppose, at the BBC that nothing happens in the summer months. It is quite in order therefore if the current affairs wallahs knock-off for the duration.
One news item that did get an airing was the Gay News blasphemy case, discussed on The Editors. The debate however suffered from a familiar fault, namely the drawingup of 'for' and 'against' battle lines. Gay News was defended by its editor Denis Lemon supported by the Guardian's Women's editor Suzanne Lowry, and attacked by William Deedes, editor of the Daily Telegraph. The editor of Reveille, Mr Cyril Kersh, a small bespectacled figure With a moustache, hovered on the wings uncertain of his precise role. What was wanted was someone to adopt the sensible course of crying a plague on both Gay News and Mrs Whitehouse. Denis Lemon took great exception when Deedes used the word 'queer', but his own mien only drew attention to the ludicrous ineptness of the alternative 'gay', as he is, in common with many of his tendency, a lugubrious and mournful-looking soul who obviously finds little in life to smile about.
The BBC again showed its lack of proper Priorities by putting on A.J.P. Taylor at 10.50 the following night. He was preceded by an hour and twenty-five minutes, no less, of show-jumping. (There is further .massive coverage throughout the week.) No doubt to the expert eye of the equestrian this spectacle is continuously fascinating, but for the layman like myself the sight of a lot of horses jumping over fences one after the Other is likely to have the same effect as those acrobatic sheep vaulting hurdles who lull the insomniac to sleep in cartoons. My own fitful slumbers were continuously disturbed by the asinine commentary of Dorian Williams who must be on the short list for winner of the Grand Colemanballs Trophy of 1977. Williams cannot allow the viewer to reach his own conclusions about What is going on before his eyes. If a horse's hoof dislodges a brick he shouts out gratuitously 'It's goner At other times his speculations are ingenuous, to say the least. When the ineffable Harvey Smith crashed into a huge obstacle and retired in obvious dudgeon, Williams observed: 'Harvey's going off, no doubt wondering if David Broome can pull it off tonight.' I imagine Harvey Smith's thoughts at that particular moment in time were more inclined towards blasphemous libel. A.J.P. Taylor, I thought, when he finally appeared, was not at his best. The origins of the Crimean War are not the most interesting of topics and the old boy carries his eschewment of visual aids on occasion to absurd extremes. In this case a map at least would have helped those of us who are hazy as to the precise whereabouts of Sebastopol.
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