Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Later today I must remember to print out an emboldened notice in 72 point script and sellotape it to the television. WARNING: PLEASE REMEMBER THAT PANORAMA IS RUBBISH! The last time I inflicted the BBC’s ‘flagship current affairs programme’ upon myself, it prompted an intemperate rant about John Sweeney and his eerily Chris Morris-esque ‘Weekend Nazis’ documentary. Alas, I had forgotten this previous experience when I settled down last night to watch Panorama’s supposed examination of modern Britishness. I suppose that in the blogosphere we are spoilt with a surfeit of reflective sites which ponder extensively and thoughtfully questions of identity and nationality , political and cultural, as they impact upon the United Kingdom. Still, it was shocking that the national broadcaster should produce such a trite, gimmicky, slanted and at times downright offensive treatment of a complex and fascinating subject. It was particularly frustrating that the programme touched upon issues

I only normally watch ITV whenever there is football on and given that Channel 5 reception is non-existent in our sheltered corner of BT9 that leaves me with the BBC and Channel 4. The latter has already gone to reality show hell in a hand basket, so realistically I’m forced to subsist on the terrestrial offerings of our national broadcaster. This can be a particularly dispiriting experience whenever we have the offerings of John Sweeney masquerading as the Corporation’s cutting edge investigative journalism. Sweeney is best known for screaming at some Scientologists and that incident was in fact the zenith of his output. Last night we were treated to an appalling documentary, Weeekend Nazis, in which the intrepid Sweeney uncovered the startling revelation that there are some people with unpleasantly extreme political views in Europe and that some of them like to partake in war-games in the British countryside The reporter’s style is unrepentantly demotic and his voiceovers could be li