Television
Playing ball
Richard Ingrams Since listening to Lindsay Anderson reading George Orwell on It's My Pleasure (BBC 2) I have been looking again at one of the books which he used on that occasion, The English People, first publish- ed in 1947. It is surprising how much of it still holds good in spite of all the awfulness that has gone on since. After a week strug- gling to get to work in a Tubeless London I felt that Orwell would still be impressed by `the orderly behaviour of English crowds, the lack of pushing andlquarrelling,ithe'will- ingness to form queues, the good temper of harassed, overworked people like bus con- ductors'. In the same book Orwell makes a list of typical English characteristics in- cluding 'sentimentality about animals,
hypocrisy, exaggerated class distinctions and an obsession with sport'.
No one could quarrel with this last one, during a week in which almost the entire output on all three channels seems to have been taken over by sport of one kind or another. Wimbledon has not so far provid- ed any thrills, though the Indian batting in the Test match on Sunday was quite superb. Try as I may, I cannot get excited by the World Cup on the BBC. There is something pretty depressing about David Coleman and his panel of experts ready to analyse every move of every game. I would like it more if they weren't also blatantly biased in favour of the British teams. The BBC has a good tradition in the cricket department, on radio at least, of inviting a representative of the country England is playing against to sit in the commentary box. This immediately puts a stop to the worst patriotic excesses. But with the football on the telly there is lit- tle attempt to provide balance. In the England versus West Germany match, for example, Laurie McMenemy spent some time denouncing the Germans for un- necessary writhing on the ground when to my admittedly inexpert eye the English team looked every bit as guilty. Like many others this was a boring game, the only ex- citement coming towards the end when the German captain, Rumenigge, suddenly unleashed a powerful kick which hit the corner of the English goalpost. 'Of course we can say quite happily', said commen- tator John Motson, 'that if the ball hadn't hit the bar Peter Shilton [the English goalkeeper] would have saved it.'
The only interesting and impressive television I have seen in the last week has been the ITN film reports from the Falklands by Michael Nicholson. I am sure the BBC had equally good stuff from Brian Hanrahan but when both news bulletins are on at roughly the same time because of the World Cup one has no hesitation in wat- ching ITN in preference to the BBC. We have become so used to seeing things on the telly on the same day that they happen or perhaps a day later that it was a little weird to watch the action in the Falklands nearly a fortnight after it had all come to a halt. It only served to emphasise the unreality of the war, which was enhanced when we saw the scenes of survivors from 'the Bluff Cove bombings being rowed ashore in galleys and Chinese cooks wrapped in blankets wander- ing about in a daze. The real eye-opener was the Falkland Islands themselves, bleak and forbidding, the last place on earth to fight a war about, you'd think. I hope either BBC or ITN will now stitch all this film together and show it without a break. I was interested again to note that despite the fine camera work and the many vivid pic- tures, in the end the two most memorable moments in the whole coverage of the war were provided by what the media folk disparagingly refer to as 'talking heads' Captain Salt describing the destruction of his ship HMS Sheffield and General Jeremy Moore on the capture of Port Stanley and the Argentinian surrender.
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