Posted by RDN under TV and Radio on 7 May 2012. 2 comments.
What a wonderful crop of young women we have in our crime thrillers just now. They are all obsessive, let’s say. Their work-life balance isn’t what it might be. Some stray into the autism spectrum and some claim great chunks of it. I make ten, and counting….
Posted by RDN under Economic crisis / Mind and body / TV and Radio on 7 December 2011. No comments.
Ian Hislop very nearly told us (When Bankers Were Good, BBC2) that Dickensian bankers were more moral than our own. A couple of literati on the Today show (BBC Radio 4, 7 December 2011) did actually say how awful and Dickensian our times are. (The inequality! The homeless!) So which is it? More »
Posted by RDN under Mind and body / Politics and campaigns / TV and Radio on 24 November 2011. No comments.
In recent episodes of BBC Radio 4′s The Food Programme there have been interesting examples of – and some challenges to – the show’s dogma. I think it is fair to say the show is crusading for something it calls “real food”. But what is that? More »
Posted by RDN under TV and Radio on 23 November 2011. No comments.
So. You’re a crook, a colleague, a swain: which of TV’s top female cops do you fear or hope for? The French Berthaud of Spiral is needy, sulky. There’s an element of the kittenish. The Danish Laure of The Killing is laconic and schtum to the point of surliness. Both are romantic figures. Both are richly sympathetic. More »
Posted by RDN under Mind and body / TV and Radio on 11 November 2011. No comments.
Mr Gervais’s new comedy is not very funny.
But it made me uncomfortable only because I am not sure it is proper to let Ricky Gervais pull my chain. More »
Posted by RDN under Politics and campaigns / TV and Radio on 14 July 2011. No comments.
Posted by RDN under Politics and campaigns / RDN's media cribsheets / TV and Radio on 24 June 2011. 8 comments.
I’ve been booked for the BBC TV’s Sunday ethics and religion show, and here are some sketches of what I hope to say… More »
Posted by RDN under Politics and campaigns / TV and Radio on 22 June 2011. No comments.
John Lloyd (who is one of my moral compasses) writes in his FT TV review (18/19 June 2011) that the BBC’s great prides are “enlightenment values and devotion to impartiality”. But, as he defines them, are these compatible? More »
Posted by RDN under Politics and campaigns / TV and Radio on 16 March 2011. No comments.
It is only a tiny bit cruel to say that so far (16 March 2011) Jon, Krishnan and Anna (to name just the presenting stars of C4 and Sky) have not done well. Neither have the writers of the headlines and the linking material the talent reads. Luckily, some of the specialist reporters (Fergus Walsh, for instance) seem to be doing pretty well. And the experts from all quarters seem to have been well-selected and to pitch in as best they can. The audience has only to disregard the scene-setting and they’ll be pretty well informed. But lord, the scene-setting drips prejudices at once hippie and populist: the appetite for gloom; the wilful ignorance about radiation; the refusal to discuss risk as though it wasn’t always a balance; the endless parading of Three Mile Island like it had hurt people; the assumption that Chernobyl was a huge killer (even George Monbiot has got beyond that canard). It’s sad and bad.
Posted by RDN under Politics and campaigns / RDN's media cribsheets / TV and Radio on 15 March 2011. No comments.
The Today Programme (10 March 2011) asked a man from Compass (the think tank) and me what we thought about the idea of a Public Sector Covenant. Is there, like the Military Covenant, a special understanding or settlement with civil servants of every sort. I said no…. More »
