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| Mary and a fine early Greek lass |
Well, I've watched the first two episodes of the BBC's new 'landmark series'
Civilisations - the first by Simon Schama,
the second by Mary Beard - and I thoroughly enjoyed them both, in a hazy sort of way.
They passed a couple of hours of my day very pleasantly.
Yes, they weren't anywhere near as thought-provoking or profound or original or as startling as the wonderful Kenneth Clark in his still-magnificent, beguiling and intellectually challenging
Civilisation but, Hyperion to a satyr as that old BBC programme surely is to
this comparatively dumbed-down new BBC programme, Simon Schama and Mary Beard are both excellent story-tellers - and, as you'd expect, the programme is an absolute treat for the eyes...
...(except for when the BBC's camerapersonages are made to do that annoying out-of-focus gimmick they've obviously been asked to do on behalf of Professor Beard).
On the BBC bias front...
...Dividing the presentation between three reliably left-wing, 'progressive' historians - all of who could be relied upon to drop in the occasional hint about the value of immigration and multiculturalism, or to talk critically about "gendered" art, or to take the odd potshot at Kenneth Clark's 'Eurocentricity' - was a very 'BBC' decision.
In fact, you
might even cite it as an absolute proof of BBC bias.
And, yes, although I didn't feel as if I was being continuously hit over the head by a huge BBC-shaped haddock in these first two episodes, I
did notice the programme's 'progressive'
hints.
And, yes, it
was indeed a
divisive decision to make the presentation of the programme a purely, left-wing 'progressive' affair...
...as demonstrated by the following pair of articles (the first from the Right, the second from the Left):
Ed West: Civilisations is right-on and rather underwhelming.
Yasmin Alibhai Brown: The BBC’s Civilisations is wonderfully multicultural – and the usual suspects are fuming.
*******
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| Mary and the Chinese lads |
Despite enjoying what I've seen so far, no blogger worth his or her salt could ever resist trying to best a BBC historian, so I'm going to indulge myself here by using my avid reading of ancient Chinese history in order to try and discredit Mary Beard.
See how I get on below....
One thing I know about China's famous '
First Emperor' - the Mao-like monster. who began reigning supreme over the Chinese heartland in 221 BC and who was responsible for the Terracotta Army and the founder of the Qin dynasty - is that his name
wasn't 'Qin' and that he
wasn't the 'Emperor Qin'
despite Mary Beard repeatedly calling him that!
He was born either Ying Zheng or Zhao Zheng and became - like Bruce Forsyth before him - the King of Qin (a joke that only works if you know that 'Qin' is pronounced 'Chin' - hence 'China').
He's known to history, after brutally destroying every over Chinese warring state and becoming the first emperor of China as Qin Shi Huang - a title not a name. It simply means 'First Emperor, from the Qin dynasty'.
No one, except for Mary Beard, so far as I can see, has ever called the First Emperor 'Emperor Qin' before, for the very good reason that there never was a Chinese emperor called 'Emperor Qin'.
Still, to be fair to her, at least she didn't call him 'Emperor Ming', or 'Ming the Merciless'.
Would Kenneth Clark have made such an error? And wouldn't the BBC of the 1960s, unlike the BBC of now (which seems to know a lot less), have prevented such lapses from going out even if he had?
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| The First Emperor of Mongo |
*******
Reviews for the programme have been mixed - some enthusiastic, some tepid, some brutal.
Very oddly,
one of the most brutal reviews (a mere two stars our of five) came from the BBC's own arts editor Will Gompertz on the BBC News website...
...and the BBC News website has given it a good deal of prominence.
It's astonishingly rude.
So rude that it positively invited rudeness in return....
As noted by MB on the Open Thread, Will's criticism is curious and very 'BBC'. Why? Because despite attacking a BBC programme, it weirdly employs PC to pile in upon another form of PC.
Personal pique (
Civilisations without Will Gompertz)
might be the explanation.
UPDATE: A little Twitter exchange involving the BBC's Nick Higham:
Willard Foxton Todd: Is there anything more BBC than spending millions on an incredibly high profile series and then having your own arts editor give it a 2 star review on the front page of your website?
Nick Higham, BBC: As the BBC’s erstwhile bad-news-about-the-BBC correspondent, I defend to the hilt the right/duty of BBC reporters to make independent judgements about BBC policies/actions. Whether we should be *reviewing* stuff (programmes, plays, films etc) I’m less sure...
