Best thing I've seen on TV lately, oddly, I didn't see on TV. Just caught up with Alan Davies' teenage diaries on the Channel 4 equivalent of iPlayer because I missed it when it broadcast, and it was comfortably the most intelligent and well-written thing I've seen on telly lately.
He spoke with wit and passion of his experiences growing up in an era in which Britain was bitterly divided politically and seemed at war with itself over disarmament, gender politics, the union movement, anything you care to mention. It resonates with anybody of a certain age. I'm a bit younger than him but remember watching coverage of the miners' strike, Greenham Common, the poll tax riots etc on television through opening eyes, just as he describes his own experience. I'm of course a bit biased because I share his politics, so his views on Thatcher and her ideology for example, which featured heavily, chime nicely with mine.
But it's close to home and a bloody good watch for anybody of a certain age. And for those of you not yet of a certain age, an instructive tour of how things were and, frankly, how things might yet be again given what are likely to be swingeing cuts in public spending later this year. One of the things he did very well was contrast those times with the relative comfort and apathy of, by comparison with that era, a de-politicised society today. Certainly a de-politicised youth culture, at any rate. The obsessions and fads of today's student generation seem pale and wafer thin already, but especially so when compared to those of his era. Maybe it'll take some catastrophic denudation of our public services to open a few eyes as his were.
Anyway, there's about a fortnight left before it disappears from 4 OnDemand or whatever it's called. Catch it while you can.
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