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Graham Cleghorn….victim
of injustice in |
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Merry Christmas everyone! On Monday, may you all wake up and
get exactly the present you wanted, or if you're a bloke and you're married,
at least pretend to like what you do get. Believe me, it makes the rest of
the day (and your life) far more memorable. In our family we find it easier to
say what we want. That way there are no unpleasant surprises. Some of our
friends reckon it takes all the fun out of it, but we know from painful
experience it is the lesser of the two evils. Mrs Brown is a woman of mature
years, if not habits, and at this time of the year she puts a lot of thought
into buying pressies for our grandchildren. She works on the premise that the
gift that is capable of making the most noise is invariably the best. She takes delight out of knowing
that it is some sort of karma connected to the action, which means our sons
and daughter get what they deserve. Drums, trumpets, horns, balls with
noises and other types of musical toys, capable of being played at a decibel
level that would drown out a 747 jet passing overhead, are considered very
good presents. But, as we know, life so often
imitates television and, during the summer months especially, you don't
always get what you want. One of the briefs I got when
starting this column more than two years ago was to review notable
documentaries. I observed that for much of the first three weeks, before
finding there were generally more interesting things on the box. Not always,
you understand, but most weeks. Having a flick through this week's
line-up, I couldn't help but notice the number of docos (what us regular
viewers of the genre call them) that were on. On Monday night, TV One had
three of them, one after another at prime time: 7.30, 8.30 and 9.30pm, give
or take a few minutes here and there. I know from feedback that some
regular readers of this column are very intelligent, perceptive, even
highbrow, types of people. Like Anne in the Anyway, the first doco was a
lightweight offering. It was the final of "the Excellent Adventures of.
. ." in this case, Harry Enfield, the British comedian. It is funny how often funny people
aren't funny when they haven't got a script, or a team of writers coming up
with brilliant one-liners. Harry was OK, but funny? Mildly. The problem was the silly scenario
he had. He and pal Charlie went on a re-enactment of Operation Barbarossa --
Hitler's ill-fated attempt to invade Oh what a jolly jape it was for
these two well-spoken upper-class chums. Oh what bloody silly television it
was. Five countries and 1496 kilometres to get through. On foot, and by jeep, with little
stop-offs at Adolf's Wolf's Lair to pad out the hour. It was mildly
interesting, if a somewhat strange mixture of Reality TV impersonating a
documentary. Next came the best programme on
television I have seen for many an hour (Since Coro St last Thursday in
fact!). Investigation did a superb
documentary on Dunblane: 10 Years On. Mrs Brown and I watched it with tears
in our eyes as the story of the unhinged gunman, Thomas Hamilton, (a former
scoutmaster) who shot and killed a teacher and 16 five or six-year-olds and
wounded numerous others was retold. Not with any hysteria or emotional
trauma, but in a simple, almost matter-of-fact manner, which is what gave the
programme its power. You couldn't help but feel for one
father, who had lost his wife to cancer two years before the massacre, and
then lost his only child, a five-year-old girl, who was callously gunned down
by He devoted much of the next 10
years to campaigning for more restrictions on handguns and won some
hard-earned reforms. This was television at its best -- apart from showing
the All Blacks winning the World Cup next year. The role of the narrator was a
real lesson to those who feel the need to intrude by injecting themselves
into a programme where they clearly aren't needed. A bit like British rugby
referees. It may have been coincidental, but
during the ad break, while Mrs Brown and I were composing ourselves and
looking forward to a wee break from the emotions, what did we get? Ads for
ChildFund, of course, showing those poor wretched African children looking
close to death. Naturally the only thing between them and death was our
wallets and, after 60 seconds of that, it took all my time to stop Mrs
Compassionate sponsoring the whole village. That was the end of the second
doco. The third of the night was Sex and Lies in He'd previously been a monk,
complete with the orange sheet wrap-around, but by now, in his fifties, he
was happily living with a young Cambodian wife in the middle of nowhere. To cut a long story short, he was
found guilty of five charges of rape and was in jail. He was desperate to get
out and his Kiwi lawyer, who was acting pro bono -- no relation to the U2
singer -- reckoned he was being fitted up by a corrupt system. There was lots of for and against,
and it was hard to know who was telling the truth, although a one-day trial
without any cross-examination didn't seem all that fair. The reality was our sympathy quota
had already been exhausted. After Dunblane it was almost trivial, if not for
poor old Cleggy. Be interesting to see the outcome. A Gibson Group
production, the makers bent over backwards (that could get you arrested in Just to show how inexhaustible Mrs
B and I are, we even watched Band Aid: the Song that Rocked the World doco,
on TV One at 8.30pm on Tuesday. It was excellent, with Boy George a bit of a
scene-stealer. The song still sounds good, plenty of Africans are now getting
fed, but there's so much more to do, of course. Again the ChildFund ad came on;
again I had to confiscate the phone. We care, but there is a limit to the
financial support we can offer, you understand. Especially when one has to pay
for replacement computers after one gets fried. But I promised not to mention
that, so all that's left to say is Merry Christmas! And watch out for next week's
annual Brownie awards. |