Television
Short rhymes
Wendy Cope
t's too hot. I have mislaid my pencil- sharpener and can't summon up the energy to look for it. But none of this must be allowed to get in the way of the vital business of television criticism. Lots of people have been telling me it would be easier with a word processor but I am not sure I can face having anything in my study that looks so much like a television set.
Now that the current series of LA Law (ITV) has come to an end, I haven't even got a favourite programme to look forward to. I expect something new will emerge in the next few weeks. Where television is concerned, my tendency to become addicted seems to be self-limiting. Since I got into LA Law, I haven't bothered with Cagney and Lacey (BBC1) and I can't imagine how I sat through hour after hour of Dallas. I have just noticed that old episodes of Dallas are being repeated on BBC 1 on Monday mornings. According to my newspaper, Katherine Wentworth is still alive and is accusing Cliff Barnes of wrecking her father's business. I am not interested. One day, no doubt, I shall look back with the same kind of disbelief on my curiosity about Victor's love-life or my concern about the relationship between Anne and Stuart. Victor has turned out not to be gay, after all. Recently he has had a series of encounters with unsuitable women — a blonde dentist, for example, who wanted to floss his teeth while they were in bed together. None of his affairs has worked out, so he remains available to provide some romantic interest in the next series. Unlike the rest of the cast, which has been pairing off at an alarming rate. Now and again they also find time to appear in court, often handling the kind of cases that give the programme a veneer of social conscience. I shall miss it and I shall miss the way it makes the telephone ring. One good thing about having a favourite
programme is that one's friends, with uncanny accuracy, pick the crucial hour for a long chat. Now that I have a video, I can be nice to them.
As the weekend was sunny, I went out most of the time, conscientiously leaving the machine to record several yards of programmes. The reels of tape had about as much chance of being watched on Monday as a plateful of cold porridge has of being eaten. I played back one program- me, Favourite Things (BBC 2), partly because it was the shortest. It featured Russell Harty talking to Germaine Greer, whose favourite things included jugged hare (a bit much first thing in the morning) and oysters. 'These are alive,' she pointed out, 'Animal welfare will get round to oysters.' Most of the things in the program- me were not, in themselves, particularly interesting — ragged nasturtiums in the garden, mounds of earth in a field that is meant to become an orchard, an Ethiopian bag, the dreaded word processor. I found myself wishing we could have a proper look around the house in the fashion of Through the Keyhole (ITV). All the same, it was a tolerable half-hour because Ger- maine Greer is a witty talker. Some weeks I should think the programme must be very dull indeed.
Later on Monday morning I watched a very short programme called Five to Eleven (BBC 1). The reason this programme only lasts five minutes is that it is a poetry programme. The television bosses who bring all those politicians to our screens are extremely cautious about exposing us to English verse. Perhaps I should congratu- late them for risking a fragment of off-peak viewing time on Thomas Hardy's 'The Ruined Maid' and a ballad by Patricia Beer. Both poems were read by Penelope Lee with a West Country accent that I thought rather overdone. They are plan- ning to use one of my poems in this slot in September. If the producer is open to suggestions, could I please have ordinary RP, not too dramatic and not too posh? But if you think that will bore the public, don't worry. I'll take the money quietly and I promise not to review it.
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