Don't stop the sun!

A green sea and overcast skies give cause for alarm as the day descends into evening but I take hope from the vague patches of blue which, I think, bode well for the morrow.

The only intellectual thing that I have even attempted today is to start reading Milton Shulman’s “The Ravenous Eye – The Impact of the Fifth Factor” his critique of the uses and abuses of television first published in the early seventies and revised and updated for the 1975 edition that I have conspicuously failed to read for 35 years!

I am about half way through and although I do responded to Shulman’s reasoned approach for taking television seriously rather than dismissing the medium as an arm of the entertainment industry, the book now has to be read as an interesting historical document rather than a cutting edge contribution to the discussion.

For example, I have reached pages 148 and 149 and there are the references to “On the Braden Beat”; “This Week”, “Panorama”; “Man Alive”; the Ronan Point flats; “The Frost Programme”, Dr. Emil Savundra; Dr John Petro and “Midweek.” At least two of that list will be known by many, but how old do you have to be to know the lot!

As Shulman develops his argument you begin to realize just how far we have come with the development of the internet; downloading; time delay; mp3; facebook; e-mails; twitter; mobile phones; cable; satellite and the rest of the communications and entertainment developments which have changed the media world out of all recognition from the environment in which Shulman was writing. But his concerns are still valid and challenging.

But it is the historical bit that gets me. My family had been watching The Harry Worth Show when a special announcement came on the television, “The BBC regrets to announce the death of President Kennedy (gasp!) He was assassinated (double gasp!) . . .” Politicians are mentioned: Joe Haines; Quintin Hogg; Richard Crossman; Duncan Sandys; Alec Douglas-Home, and George Brown!

Shulman reminded me of one of George Brown’s worst television performances when he gave his maudlin assessment of JFK just after his assassination. I always assumed that he was drunk – it was easier than assuming that he was like that normally!

Memories, memories – and these are only the British personalities!

Tomorrow Barcelona and The Pupil.