Watching the Telly

Spanish TV is dreadful. Even the good bits are amateurish compared to British TV. The news, for example does very little analysis, especially of international events (I am told that radio is better and I must admit we do like listening to the classical music programme on Radio Nacional de Espan(y)a which is like a less snobby version of Radio 3). Items are accompanied by film of the utmost banality with only a loose connection to what is at issue. Alternatively we get gruesome shots of dead bodies, body parts or-if all else fails-traces of blood smeared across pavements or walls in the wake of a crime.

But what is happening to the BBC? We have just watched two of the programmes in the White Series which, I guess, must be about the impact of immigrant culture on the white working class. The first was a programme what centred round a working men's club in Bradford and its struggle to stay alive as the world changed around it. Your heart had to bleed for the utter hopelessness of the committee members but what sentimental nonsense it was! We were encouraged to believe by the voiceover of the producer/director/interviewer that what was being lost was a golden age of social cohesion and working class warmth. In fact these communities, not of the white working class but more accurately of the unskilled white working class, were always narrow and bigoted. If you fitted in you were fine but woe betide anyone whose opinions, lifestyle, sexuality, aspirations etc. etc. etc. were different from the majority. Last night we watched a play about a young girl who fled her chaotic drug taking, alcohol abusing white family and converted to Islam, taking refuge with her Muslim next door neighbours. It was beautifully acted but traded in stereotypes-white family life in ruins, Muslim families cosy and warm with food on the table-and easy answers as at the end when the white mother divorced her brutal husband by repeating "I divorce you" three times, as far as I am aware not an option available to Muslim women. We look forward to the programme about Polish immigrants tonight!