I've decided that BBC4 is television as it should be.
This evening I have watched in a marathon sitting, My Life as a Dog and Dounreay: The Atomic Dream, about the nuclear reactor at Dounreay. And then, when I was about to write this blog entry, and looked at the BBC4 website, I noticed that the documetnary Atom was on, and had to go and watch that, too.
I've heard people mock BBC4, as 'quiet' and 'boring', and as a place you go when you want to be alone. I suppose I don't have to spend much time thinking about such views, really, but I do sigh rather when I am reminded how little I have in common with ninety-nine percent of humanity.
If only all television was like BBC4. But then again, it's probably best it's not, as I completely neglected to do my quota of writing this evening, because I was watching television.
And now there's a programme about Georg Cantor on, which looks utterly fascinating, but I suppose I must sleep sometime, and I shall simply leave this memo to myself here: Look up more about Georg Cantor.
Robin Davies writes:Spot on! It’s been my favourite channel since… well, since BBC2 stopped doing the sort of stuff that BBC4 is now doing! I’m shocked at how far the rest of TV is dumbing down. The Newsnight features on the deaths of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni were disgraceful displays of cynical inverted snobbery.
I was lucky enough to catch most of a long interview with/documentary on Bergman just before his death. I found it very moving. Obviously, at his age, he knew death was not far away, and he spoke quite openly and movingly on the subject. And then, a few days later, he was dead. I didn’t see the Newsnight feature on him, though.I’ve been vaguely thinking of writing a blog post on all the things I hate most about Britain, but I think it’s probably been covered by Momus in his essay ‘Nasty, British and Short’, which I can’t currently link to, as the website seems to be down, temporarily or otherwise.Anyway, one of the things that irritates me is the deep suspicion towards anything foreign or arty, and especially towards anything foreign and arty. I don’t know if that was the general tenor of the Newsnight feature.It’s just a shame that BBC4 is segregated. People should be forced to watch it, the way that I am forced sometimes to watch utter trash against my will because it’s the popular choice. I don’t know. It reminds me of the days when I used to go to parties. My experience was, if I put music on, it would always come off very quickly.I suppose I’m just grumbling now.
Justin Isis writes:I’d make fun of Britain, but then I’d be forced to confront the reality of American culture, and well, people in glass houses…