<div class="zemanta-img">

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="242" caption="Sutton Hoo helmet"]<a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sutton.hoo.helmet.png"><img title="Helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial 1, England." src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Sutton.hoo.helmet.png" alt="Helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial 1, England." width="242" height="363" /></a>[/caption]

</div>
In theory I like TV programmes about history. So I tuned into last night's BBC <em><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t6xzx" target="_blank">Treasures of the Anglo Saxons</a></em> expecting a treat.

Blimey O'Reilly was I wrong there.

BBC history progs used to work on a simple but effective format: find an intelligent, normally academic commentator, take them to the pretty places and objects that form their subject then let them give you a short, plain language lecture that leaves ignorant civilians like me better informed.

No longer. Now, it seems, our attention span has grown so short and weak we have to be <em>entertained</em> along the way. You know what TV entertainment means, don't you? In terms of history it means this...

<!--more-->Dr Nina Ramirez, an art historian Oxford-based academic, is our guide. Ramirez surely knows her stuff. She recites <a class="zem_slink" title="Beowulf" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf">Beowulf</a> in the original utterly incomprehensible language, with sub titles. Given she speaks very good English and English speakers aren't normally sub-titled for a programme that's in, er, English you have to ask yourself: why? Oh, that's right. To show she's an academic, because only clever people would know how to pronounce that stuff.
<div class="zemanta-img zemanta-action-dragged">

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Beowulf: I can talk like him, can you?"]<a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beowulf_and_the_dragon.jpg"><img title="An illustration of Beowulf fighting the dragon..." src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/Beowulf_and_the_dragon.jpg/300px-Beowulf_and_the_dragon.jpg" alt="An illustration of Beowulf fighting the dragon..." width="300" height="369" /></a>[/caption]

</div>
She also, quite bizarrely, wears high heels that make her totter and teeter along the way, especially on muddy fields which are not, as far I'm aware, conventional stiletto territory, at least not of the shoe type.

This is all 'entertainment' you see. I don't doubt for one moment that Nina Ramirez knows her stuff and wouldn't dream of talking to her Oxford students in such a subtly condescending way. But we're TV viewers. We need something to stop us going into the kitchen and reaching for the kettle.

The Saxons had lots of things that could do this and she showed us quite a few. The Staffordshire Hoard. Amazing. Sutton Hoo. Gob-smacking. And a few I never knew about, including a private bunch of treasures found down the road from me near Sandwich.

All fine and good. But it's not enough , is it? We had Nina shouting at us across a busy road in London with a wall behind her. Why? Because, er, the Romans built a wall too (I think). Hadrian's. Which was not the Kilburn High Road, or wherever this was filmed. But it was a wall, OK?

Then we had Nina tottering into Garrards the jewellers and asking them how they'd recreate some of the Saxon treasures she'd found. They ummed and aahed and said: two months and two hundred grand. Cooeee, said Nina, or words to that effect.

And, just to hammer home the point, not that I was ever sure what the point was, Garrards let her sit at a power grinding wheel and try to shape a piece of garnet. Not easy when you're giggling. After a good try <em>she found the garnet had hardly been reduced at all! </em>Boy it must have been tough for those Anglo-Saxons. As the Garrard chap helpfully pointed out <em>they didn't even have electricity.</em>

I think I knew that, thank you.

Talk about an opportunity wasted. Why does the Beeb need to talk down to its audience the moment a subject turns a touch serious? Why would some daft director foist this mad and superficial style on a knowledgeable expert? What possible reason, for that matter, does the academic have for going along with this trite nonsense? Are they desperate to be on X-Factor too?

Does the Beeb really think we're all that stupid?

No. The programme before on BBC 4 was Clare Balding's wonderful <em><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tjr3z" target="_blank">Britain by Bike</a>, </em>this time in the glorious Highlands. Balding is a marvellous presenter, and this a wonderful example of how to make thoughtful, enthusiastic television. She cycled around the places she wanted to talk about and interviewed intelligent articulate people talking about what they knew best. So we got some Highland history then Terry Nutkins talking about his time with Gavin Maxwell, the author of <em>Ring of Bright Water</em>, and a few very sad and touching comments about how fame made Maxwell fall apart in the end.

No stiletto heels. No visits to London jewellers. No ridiculous clothes or gurning expressions for the camera. Just good television.

Balding, of course, was <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/clare-balding-homophobia-aa-gill-and-me-2040474.html" target="_blank">pilloried by that prat AA Gill</a> for her sexuality the other week, not that it's got anything to do with her substantial journalistic skills at all. Fat reward for making thoughtful television, eh? To be labelled a 'dyke on a bike' by some smug hack who makes a rich living out of little more than hurling abuse at others.

Perhaps that's what you get for trying. The English never did like swots. But I bet the Anglo-Saxons loved them. Otherwise who would have made all that beautiful jewellery.

PS - unfortunately I've had to put comments into moderation before they appear because this post has so incensed someone he is now posting one abusive one every thirty seconds. Since he won't provide a real email address I can only say here now what I tried to say in an email: no problem with carrying comments with disagree with the above. But pure personal abuse, particularly from someone who wishes to hide who they are, is not acceptable.

So feel free to comment but it won't appear until moderation thanks to James Fortford, Fortsford, Ortsford or whatever fictitious name he's using this time.