The sun has long set, the Liverpool and City fans are spilling out of the pubs, and - on returning home - I've just switched on the TV, and the first thing I heard was David Attenborough saying "humans have caused new problems for the swifts" to stunning images of dams and agitated minor key orchestral music.
I know I should have stayed with it for more than 20 seconds, but you really can have too much of a good thing and David Attenborough endlessly channelling his inner St. John the Divine on a Sunday evening really isn't doing it for me at the moment. (Shame on me!!!). So I turned him off and returned to the blog.
Because I've three more things that I really need to say about this morning's The Andrew Marr Show that I really don't want to be lost to posterity. (Not really).
The first thing that The Future must take from this post is that I found Labour's Andrew Gwynne to have an excessively loud voice. He was quite literally a loudmouth - albeit a whiny, high-pitched loudmouth, like Brian Blessed on helium. I hope Andrew Marr's famous ears weren't ringing painfully afterwards. Even I, watching the programme on my laptop, lost 23.7% of my hearing after listening to Andrew Gwynne being what we up north call a 'gobshite'.
The second thing is that the Green Party's Caroline Lucas got asked the "Do you fly?" question by Andrew Marr and said, yes, she does, to America to see her son. Now, I'm seeing two very different strands of reaction to that. One says that it proves Ms Lucas is a stinking hypocrite, especially after her response to Andrew's question was to say that focusing on individuals distracts from the real villains, the global multinationals. (What would Greta say to that? We can still fly?) The second, however, says that Caroline gave an honest answer and that she appeared the most 'natural' of the three politicians. I think she did come across well, as she usually does. Despite her party's extreme policies, she seems quite pleasant. (I know it's de rigueur at blogs hereabouts to loathe 'the poison pixie' but I can't bring myself to do so). But I think the 'what all of us must do individually' question is one a Green Party MP can't just point towards and shift onto the giant squirrel of giant capitalist companies, given that - as per Greta - we all need to stop flying. Andrew didn't press her at all. In fact, he was actually apologetic about asking her the "Do you fly?" question in the first place. Maybe he likes her too.
The third thing is that Conservative chancellor Sajid Javid didn't put in a good performance. Repeatedly trying to bang on about the cost of Labour's spending pledges without answering any questions about his own party's spending pledges, and trying to shift it back to Labour every time Andrew Marr asked him about the cost of Conservative spending pledges, made him look silly, and just like the kind of politician who really gets up people's noses. It just doesn't look serious. But it is politics.
And on that bombshell...
Perhaps Marr held back slightly on following up the question "Do you fly?" in view of activities at another part of the BBC. All through last week, on Radio 2, Zoe Ball's fever-pitched excitement has been directed towards a raffle in which lucky listeners are being flown two by two to rock concert venues throughout the USA to see the likes of Elton John, Celine Dion, Taylor Swift, and Lionel Richie. Add the carbon footprint of the average rock concert to the flights, and we see from the BBC a contribution to global warming an own goal that could easily have been avoided. Ah, but it's for Children in Need - so that expunges any green fanciful thoughts.
ReplyDeleteThe antidote to Attenborough's World Of Disaster is Bernard Hill's Wild China. Sure China has ecological problems and is burning more coal in a minute than we burnt in a life time (etc.) but all of its problems are solveable because of its unique form of government (and funding/making documentaries?)!
ReplyDeleteCompare and contrast with Countryfile's Tom Heap, the failure of Mrs Smith's strawberry jam to set in time for Little Piddock's WI competition, 'because of Brexit/Global Warning/Adversity' puts the decline of the Great Panda in context.
The Pixie might look cute but one's political brain should be in the head, not the trousers.