Greedy greenies

‘We have a problem. Yes. At the wind farm.’ Any conspiracy thriller with lines like that has definitely got my vote. Possibly most of you are unaware of this, because it’s not something I talk about often, but I happen to be not too fond of the things I call bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes — nor of the charlatans, crooks, liars and parasites who make their living out of them.

Indeed, whenever I try to think of an industry that’s worse than wind farms I keep coming unstuck. At least landmines serve a useful purpose for force protection; at least Albanian prostitutes make a few men very happy. Wind, on the other hand, is a business entirely dependent on junk science, compulsory government levies and crony capitalist favouritism which produces nothing of real value. It is intrinsically corrupt and therefore prone to exactly the kind of greed and skulduggery we see in the latest Scandi crime series, Follow the Money (BBC4, Saturday).

One of the vows I made after my recent brush with death was to spend more time playing video games and watching TV. But what I’m finding is that even when you treble your screen time, it’s still not enough to keep pace with all the good stuff that’s out there. I haven’t seen Happy Valley yet, which I know I must. Nor, despite a heroic effort, have I got further than the middle of season four of The Walking Dead. And of course as soon as the new season of Thrones starts we’re going to be really stuffed. It is quite clear what is to blame for all this: globalisation.

When all the foreign TV you had to catch up with was American, it was just about manageable. But now that the French have started making good stuff (Spiral; Les Revenants — the first series, anyway) — and the Germans (Deutschland 83); and the Swedes and the Danes (Borgen; The Killing; The Bridge; Wallander); and even the Icelanders (Trapped) — there just aren’t enough hours in the evening to keep abreast of everything.