Tuesday Night's TV (21/3/06)

Had two rather shocking realisations about aspects of British culture last night while watching the tellybox. One came at the end of Jimmy's Farm, Jimmy being a pseudo-Jamie Oliver who has set himself up as a pig farmer in Cambridgeshire. At the end of this programme, briefly, as Jimmy and some of the other locals gathered for their Wicker Man-like weekend activities, they showed a bunch of them BLACKED UP, with WIGS ON, strumming away on musical instruments and singing songs while dressed up like Deep South slaves. Now I'm not one to rag on regional tradition. You can morris dance the night away if the fancy takes you as far as I'm concerned. But isn't that a little....racist? Doing a version of the black and white minstrel show for the local fair? I have to say I was completely speechless, and remained so for the duration of Rail Cops; the show which shows the Transport police to be the same sort of officious little bullies as their Metropolitan comrades, with just about the same levels of ignorance......and aggression. Now I'm sure they have to deal with idiots in the course of their work. But even if you don't like the cut of someone's gib (and the bloke was French), I'm not sure it's absolutely necessary for two men to stick their knees in his back whilst ramming their hands down his underpants to check whether he has a weapon. I'm also not sure that calling him Borat was entirely affectionate. Also - while the boys in public transport blue have to be on their guard these days - closing down Westminster tube for two hours because some white powder on the floor might be anthrax (but not supervising it, so in fact a cleaner nearly swept it up), simply demonstrates why everyone thinks the police force are bit of a joke. Idea for Met - if you stay off the telly, we won't see quite how incompetent you are, and the Law can stagger on for a few more years under the illusion that we have respect for it.