Reacting to famous people being, or not being, interviewed on television.

Emma Brockes, writing in a Guardian article about how the whole Prince Andrew scandal and interview had made her rethink her attitude to the TV series “The Crown” wrote this, “Perhaps as long as the show was set beyond my living memory, it was easy to go along with the romance. Now it seems phoney and absurd.” Which reflects my own reluctance to watch any of the series at all. The series has been recommended to me by quite a lot of people, including my daughter, but I find I have no interest in watching a romanticisation of stuff that has gone on in my lifetime. Kicking around in the house somewhere is a coronation mug and a book about the then new Queen Elizabeth. Maybe they are worth something now. Who knows. I also have a vague memory of a party in a park to celebrate the coronation when I was a small girl. And that’s it for interest in the royal family.

I’m not averse to historical novels and dramatisations. “Wolf Hall” is magnificent as a book and a TV series. But I prefer my historical stuff to be historical and not stuff that I remember from my childhood onwards. Having said that, I recognise that for younger generations my childhood probably seems like ancient history.

Nor do I want to see films of events such as an experienced airline pilot successfully and safely landing a plane in the Hudson River, or similar goings-on. Those are news items. Of course, I might be misjudging that film completely, maybe it concentrated on the question of whether the pilot was right to land his plane where he did, the drama of his being in danger of being blamed for putting lives at risk. For nowadays we do like to have someone to blame. Did nobody think to blame the flock of geese who caused the problem to begin with.

Anyway, getting back to the lives of the rich and famous, apparently BBC Politics has been tweeting a video of Boris Johnson eating a scone. As this article points out, there is really no reason for anyone to see Johnson eating a scone. Why is it out there? Is it intended to make him appear humanly cuddly and funny? But funny is a friendly sort of way, not embarrassingly so as when Miliband ate a pasty from Greggs?

Of course, it might just be to prove he is not averse to being seen in public, just not in interviews or debates. The latest has seemingly been his refusal to take part in Channel 4’s leaders’ debate on the climate emergency.

 “Boris Johnson refused to take part in Channel 4’s “leaders debate” on the climate emergency, just as he has refused to be interviewed by the BBC’s Andrew Neil, and also refused even to be interviewed about whether or not he has refused the BBC’s Andrew Neil.
 Where his podium should have been, Channel 4 placed a melting ice sculpture. The Conservative party sent Michael Gove in his place.” (Tom Peck in the Independent)

Michael Gove was not accepted as a substitute.

Tom Peck went on:- “Still, the actual grownups over at the Conservative Central Office have responded by launching a formal complaint with Ofcom, and threatening to have Channel 4’s public broadcasting licence revoked. This is the country we are now.
Who knows, perhaps, once we’ve “taken back control of our own laws”, other people being sanctioned entirely for Boris Johnson’s own failings will be the standard run of things.”

 Oh dear!