Culture shift?

We went to bed around midnight but got up again at about 3.00 to watch the results come in from some of the key states in the American election. We switched backward and forward between channels, trying to avoid the adverts and becoming more and more irritated with the BBC coverage, which would normally be what we would choose to settle with. Instead we cringed as the pompous David Dimbelby languidly directed operations from his increasingly ample arse and one of those public school boy presenters that the BBC seem to specialise in leapt about the screen manipulating some not very helpful graphics. Then the BBC cut to their presenter in New York. She was hanging out at what was described as "the BBC party" in a bar in Times Square. The walls were painted black and it looked as though they had forgotten to send out the invitations. At any event there was hardly anyone there apart from Erica Jong and Eddie Izzard, who I like as a performer and who I think is very intelligent, but whose credentials to comment on the matters in hand I would question. The fact that the BBC had Simon Schama as one of the panelists back in the studio (his 4 part series on America has been absolutely compelling) and that they didn't use him more and allowed him to be drowned out by an American Ambassador (name???) whose main aim seemed to be to fling accusations of anti-Americanism around, made it all the more frustrating.

In all this, however, Jong did say something interesting in that she pointed out that, having campaigned for Hillary Clinton, she had been brought to support Obama by her 30 year old daughter and that this was a generational shift. I must say that I remain deeply disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not get a chance at this, but Jong's comments make sense and seem to be supported by this morning's post-election analysis. According to this, even in Republican states, the under 30's voted by 66% for Obama, who of course himself is too young to have been influenced much by the Vietnam War or even its immediate aftermath. This strikes me as almost as significant as the race issue, important as that is and not only for African-Americans. Even listening to Obama's acceptance speech this morning, I was struck not only by the content but also by the style of delivery.

All in all, I think something happened yesterday. And the BBC just didn't get it.