Why I’m rooting for Elon Musk

Why bother with something true to life, dignified and classy when you can create something untrue, cheap and vulgar? While surfing through channels looking for a black and white oldie, I came across something that I think is called Rogue Heroes. I’m not sure of the title because the programme annoyed me so much that I turned it off after less than ten minutes. And it took as long as that because the trash was based on a terrific subject: the war in the desert pitting the bold Rommel against timid Monty.

What made the few minutes I watched seedy and sordid was the language. I’m no prude and can swear with the best of them, but only in the right environment. In the scene I watched, David Stirling, a gent and an officer in real life, approaches General Auchinleck and proposes a guerilla group to attack Rommel’s supply lines. He uses the F-word non-stop when he meets officers he doesn’t know.

Poor little upstanding Taki was outraged. I used to gamble with Bill Stirling, David’s brother and co-founder of the SAS, and have been a friend of Bill’s son, Archie, for 50 years or so. I never heard Bill Stirling use the F-word, even when losing a fortune at the Aspinall tables. Nor do I think British officers of the time used that word in public when being introduced to each other. I suppose it’s the trash urge that makes directors and writers include such stuff – or, better still, it is the lack of talent that demands it. The actors were no better. They overacted and made faces to show intent as if it were a silent flick. What surprised me was Dominic West appearing in a brief role. He’s a good actor, so why go so downmarket?