Sorry, I’m in Sardinia at the moment and I couldn’t find any preview tapes that really grabbed me before I went away so if you don’t mind I thought I’d just have a general grumble about the state of TV.
First, Weekend Nazis (BBC1, Monday), whose undercover team made the truly cataclysmic discovery that one or two members of Second Battle Group — a British second world war re-enactment outfit which specialises in portraying German Waffen SS soldiers — may have neo-Nazi sympathies.
Well, knock me down with a feather. Perhaps next week this same crack team will manage to infiltrate the Vatican and emerge with the shock horror revelation that the Pope (and quite possibly several of his aides) are Catholic.
I mean, really. When is the liberal-left going to understand that most of us just don’t give a stuff about neo-Nazis. It’s not that we love or admire them — we think they’re a bunch of preening prats. But this is exactly our point: in the great scheme of menaces which pose a clear and present danger to our way of life, neo-Nazis come way below everything, from Ken Livingstone and people who don’t clear up their dog poo to the baggage retrieval system at Heathrow.
The only people who think otherwise are Guardianistas generally, but most especially the ones responsible for writing and commissioning for the BBC. Think, for example, of Combat 18. This obscure neo-Nazi group has never achieved anything of any significance in its existence. Yet on TV it’s the embodiment of all evil, forever being wheeled out in BBC spy and cop dramas as the shadowy, sinister organisation responsible for the murders, the bombings, and so on.
But how often do any of us sit trembling on the Tube anxiously scanning our fellow passengers for tattoos, short haircuts and discreet SS lapel badges, and muttering to ourselves, ‘Christ.
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