Sacha wrote:
On 29/12/05 4:39 pm, in article
, "Janet Baraclough"
wrote:
[...]
When it came to the sculpture, both H's were more interested in
reminding us "It's a Frink", than in showing off the piece itself,
and the main thing he wanted to mention about the (awful)
waterfeecher, was the high cost.
Yes, I do agree about the Frink thing - I thought that rather awful
but then I don't like that sort of thing so perhaps that makes me
less sympathetic. I'd forgotten that bit - must have blocked it
out!
However, I thought he dealt rather well with the slight
and occasional pushiness of his interviewer who tried to solicit
his views on politics and Mrs Thatcher etc. It was, after all,
meant to be about his planting and not his political life so I
thought her questions in that regard rather cheeky.
I had the distinct impression that the presenter found him
insufferable too, and couldn't resist the temptation to prick the
inflated balloon with one or two reminiscent put-downs.
That might well be so but it was unprofessional of her, and was not
her job, IMO and he handled it well, also IMO. I would not have
expected him to do so, frankly. If someone comes to interview you
about your arboretum or your garden or your window box, it is not
unreasonable to suppose that they will stick to that subject and
not
try to make themselves a reputation as a 'hard nosed interviewer'
on
the back of a soft subject. I thought her behaviour was cheap.
I'm still not entirely clear what I thought about the prog. It left
me with an an uncomfortable feeling, and I'm still not sure why. Yes,
I did want to see the trees, not the people (I can get people any
day, and I can get politicians simply by switching on the telly or
going into the tired old journalist mode). But I did get a strong
sense that he was thinking of having produced something beautiful
which would last far longer than anything he might have produced if
he'd ever been Prime Minister: I respect that unreservedly -- we
gardeners, however small, are like that, I hope. For a veteran
politician, he seemed surprisingly stiff, to the point of
haughtiness, before the camera. I wonder if it was simply that he
knew his family were going to be involved, breaking a tabu we should
all subscribe to: nobody's children and grandchildren deserve that.
Or were we seeing something about the man himself? And, yes, Tiger, I
admired the Lenin sculpture too: totalitarian art has an energy we
ignore at our peril -- it's seductively scary, and we'd better
understand it or we could be swept up by it.
--
Mike.