Originally posted @ 10:31 pm, Mon 11th Aug 2008
Television's ability to convey a powerful message was demonstrated on Sunday evening. And its ability to miss one too.
A fur-loving chef resolved to demonstrate that wearing fur could be acceptable. I caught the programme halfway through as she was about to show anti-fur campaigners what was what. I feared for Mark Glover of Nottingham (Director of Respect for Animals) as the interview was being set up, but he started playing his video tape of animals raised in fur farms and the presenter was crushed by the cruelty and wept over what she was shown.
Still, if fur could be hunted as nature has always condoned, then perhaps she could show that the trade could be acceptable. A brusque approach from a hunter in North America (with some confusing notions on how traps, that hurt him when he snagged his fingers, were not hurting trapped animals) left the presenter with something of a score draw (at best) as she set off to Denmark to a fur market where she hoped the source of the pelts could be shown and the welfare of the animals farmed could be demonstrated.
A shame then the one of the fur dealers at the market was so openly and crassly dismissive of the significance of the source of the fur being sold - even though he could plainly see he was on camera.
The presenter finished the programme by binning her furs; made pertinent cos I suspect this was not the conclusion the programme had originally set out to reach.
Andrew Marr - viewing Britain from the sky - had the potential to make equally powerful points on top of the exceptional graphics demonstrating the scale of our commercial activity. Taxis, lorries, jets, cars with sat navs; power, water and waste; electronic communications - all got the treatment.
The automation of goods distribution shown in one of the warehouses was exceptional. The pitch however was spoilt by assertions that a lorry being 15 minutes late could drastically throw the works out. Unbelievable cos you'd expect such systems to cope (I'm sure they do) - and because the programme showed that with our motorways so busy, a driver reacting late to changes in traffic (and braking too hard) could create a traffic jam that no-one would ever be able to determine the cause of.
With BBC2 running a documentary showing how wonderful and sensitive our atmosphere is, surprising then that no real points were drawn about the impact of the activity. When the scale of commuting or driving kids to school was shown, the programme stated how extraordinary it all was and shook its head in an "aren't we all strange" kind of way; rather than say, or bring someone on to say, that we will need to change.
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