ONE OF THE MOST CURIOUS news items of the week
concerned the quarrel between the BBC and the British Transport Com- mission over the television programme in the Special Inquiry series which was to have dealt with the railways. The Trans- port Commission objected because the BBC wanted to put actors into an ordinary train and then film them while they grumbled about the dirtiness of trains and stations and the price of meals in the restaurant-car. 'This,' said the Transport Commission's spokesman, 'would give an entirely wrong im pression.' It would indeed, but not in the Transport Commis- sion's sense. It strikes me that the really odd thing about the incident is that the BBC should have proposed to use actors. With many millions of willing amateurs to choose from, they could have got all the grumbles they required on any old train.
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