Switch off those TVs - there's nothing worth watching
Bryan Forbes 9:09am
Now is the summer of our discontent. While the salaries of BBC executives grow ever larger, and the story lines of ITV and Channel 4's soaps grow ever more asinine, a tsunami of repeats smash into our living rooms.
No good surfing for something as brilliant as the original Brideshead - it doesn't exist. Paxman is on holiday, his place taken by the strident and often unintelligible Kirsty Wark; Question Time is in hiatus; the brilliant Rick Stein has forsaken these shores and gone Asian; and The Tudors gives us its bodice-ripping version of history that could easily be mistaken for a revived Monty Python.
So read a good book instead - anything by Andrew Roberts or Max Hastings - but do it this week while you can still see because in a matter of days we must all stagger about in the gloom generated by those eco-friendly bulbs the EU has decreed we must learn to love.
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THX1138
August 25th, 2009 10:34am Report this commentBryan what has what is or isn't on TV got to do with light bulbs.
I know we're on a right wing blog but you did rather crowbar in that piece on anti EU BS.
Marbury
August 25th, 2009 10:49am Report this commentI congratulate Mr Forbes on a skillful pastiche of The Spectator's house style, circa 1983. The basic recipe:
Have a good moan about repeats on TV.
Dismiss a female presenter in comparison to her male counterpart as "strident" (even better when male presenter renowned as most strident man on TV) and call her "unintelligible" for good measure (teach her not to be English).
Throw in vague references to military historians and EU tyranny, don't even pretend to have a point around which to string these trusty old prejudices, and voila, a satire of The Speccie as it once was.
A little over-the-top, perhaps, but no less fun for that :-)
diadora dave
August 25th, 2009 11:03am Report this commentWhy can't we watch Whistle Down the Wind on DVD, Bryan? That's a classic if ever there was one.
AAE
August 25th, 2009 12:38pm Report this commentGo to www.itv.com/classictvshows/?intcmp=NAV_TVSHOWS4_TVCLASSI5 and you'll find Brideshead . . . . . . .
Charles Magne
August 25th, 2009 2:38pm Report this commentAnd what about a late summer viewing of your own 1965 classic, King Rat, Mr Forbes - featuring a stand-out performance by your future son-in-law, John Standing, I believe!
Vigo
January 29th, 2010 9:07am Report this commentA serious point needs to be made that at one time we had a flourishing writing culture for television and we need somehow to claw this back. Commentators such as Jonathan Miller have some interesting observations concerning the decline of the BBC but I would also urge Mr.Forbes and others to rally support -especially via the internet - to get people together to more effectively campaign for change.
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