26 JANUARY 1985, Page 33

Television

Purring

Alexander Chancellor

At the public inauguration of President Reagan on Monday (there had been a `private' inauguration the day before, watched, like the public one, by billions of viewers all over the world), a black clergy- man got up and said what sounded to me like: 'Let us purr.' This seemed a very apt description of what everybody was doing. They were supposed to be praying, but what they were really up to was purring. Ronald and Nancy couldn't stop purring for 48 hours. One could hardly blame them. It must have seemed like a miracle at their ages to be wafted back into the White House for a second term, but it was, as the black clergyman put it, God's 'wheel'.

The celebrations marking this event were on an extraordinary scale, consider- ing that Mr Reagan has been President for four years already and won't be President for more than another four. We were at least spared the grand parade through `It's a gossip column.' Washington, which was cancelled because of the unspeakable weather (which made the recent cold spell here seem like sum- mer). But we were not spared Mr Reagan's inaugural 'address, which sounded little different in tone from the sermons that preceded it. I cannot say I heard much of 'this, because I was having tea with a friend in the kitchen at the time. But one felt rather guilty chatting away during the President's speech. It was, as my friend pointed out, rather like being caught talk- ing in church.

From the wealth and complacency of Washington to the starving of Africa. Panorama (BBC1) showed that even in Kenya, which supports the West and is duly rewarded with masses of western aid, things don't go • nearly as well as they should. Expensive aid projects have a disturbing tendency to misfire, leaving everybody as hungry as they were before and rather disorientated as well. It struck me watching this programme that too much artistry with the camera is not necessarily a good idea. The pictures we were shown were remarkably beautiful, with meticulous attention paid to the com- position of every frame. The result was that this world of misery and deprivation in the African desert seemed to the viewer here like a world of dream-like beauty, such as might be advertised by the Kenyan tourist board.

This week's 'great television revelation' was how to frighten off gossip columnists. On Did You See . . . ? (BBC2, Sunday), Nigel Dempster of the Daily Mail disclosed that all you have to do if they ring you up (if they don't ring you up, then I don't know what you do) is to accuse them of being social parasites. This apparently wounds them to the quick and they put down the telephone immediately. Mr Dempster had been invited on to the programme to discuss the new Thames Television series Lytton's Diary, in which the actor Peter Bowles plays someone supposed to resemble Mr Dempster. I have never thought Peter Bowles was much of an actor, but I had high hopes of him in this role because he looks and sounds just as one expects a gossip columnist to look and sound. But the one episode I have seen so far (the second one) was a bit of a disappointment. I found it not only uncon- vincing, but also rather boring. This was mostly, I think, the fault of the script, but also of Peter Bowles who came across as a pompous and humourless character. Nigel Dempster also noticed the humourlessness and claimed that his office at the Mail is `awash with laughter' all day long. This sounds like a bit of an exaggeration (at least I hope so, for the sake of his staff), but it cannot fail to be a bit livelier than Lytton's office at the 'Daily News'.

It is a pity that we have to go to press before the televising of the House of Lords. On how the experiment goes the future of British democracy depends. So maybe it will be worth a mention next week.