Pax Man is rather like Piltdown Man, about whom - or which - a BBC site has the following to say - "Piltdown Man went from being one of the biggest discoveries of the 20th Century to being its greatest scientific embarrassment."
Piltdown Man was a hoax, but Pax Man is real, representing one of the wrong turns the evolution of television interviewing took, somewhere along the line of Robin Day through the superb and unique John Freeman and David Frost to the Jon Snows, Jon Sopels and Andrew Marrs of today.
Nicola Sturgeon watches the strange antics of Pax Man, as he deploys his repertoire of ancient techniques to kill his prey, now entirely outmoded in the face of the fleetness and the highly evolved brains of the new generation of Scottish Nationalist politicians. (The old ways are still effective occasionally with the slower-witted Westminster prey, especially the evolutionary hybrid known as Coalition Man, destined for extinction very soon.)
Nicola Sturgeon is slightly amused by the Pax Man antics, but maintains an icy, detached calm in dealing with them, recognising their irrelevance, but aware that the Pax Man can still strike a damaging blow if the guard is lowered. But it's fun for Nicola - and for Scottish viewers - while it lasts. And a vague swell of affection rises in the heart for Pax Man as history leaves him behind, a curious relic for later generations to giggle over.
The BBC will find a compound for him somewhere, where he may snarl and growl, and pull sceptical faces for the delight of children.
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Hello. I've been enjoying your blog, since I began to rely on twitter for news on the election and political scene, rather than the mainstream media. For years now, I have felt that BBC, and others, treat news and current affairs as part of their entertainment remit. Watching your clip of the HOC, I was suddenly reminded of that vintage programme 'The Good Old Days'. A poor analogy, but it was what popped into my head at the time. Nicola was very professional and courteous.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing these clips.
Jacqui
Thanks, Jacqui!
ReplyDeleteI see from your profile that you like Gregorian chant. There's some reference to it in my book (see Amazon link to ebook right hand column) and other musical forms, i.e. jazz.
I find that after the Scottish election, amusement is a more relevant response to media lunacies than indignation. Indignation is the least productive of the emotions.
I gather that Mr Paxman is an angler of some expertise. Can he not relate the skill of playing a fish on a tempting fly and reeling it in with guile and discretion, leads to a more satisfactory catch than dynamiting randomly hoping for annihilation. Miss Sturgeon found his methods clumsy and Mr Paxman out of his depth - she got clean away in terms of political and personal acuity.
ReplyDeleteI thought there was something fishy about the interview, Clarinda ...
ReplyDeletePaxman is a raving Brit nat but more than that he's just annoying.
ReplyDeleteHe long ago lost any subtlety of insight and became a lumbering smoking jacket, members' club sort believing he is smarter than everybody else in the room. He's less than interesting because his personal agenda on every subject is always the elephant in the room.
Boring interview, don't know why the SNP bothers with the brothel that is Newsnight.
As far as Cameron/Milli are concerned, it's all down to the ties in my view. At one time Brown's ties went from red to pink to blur to light blue and one of the last ties he wore (just prior to his finest moment during the 2010 election where he started wearing red ties again - all the Labourites did) a near ultraviolet blue tie of fine woven silk.
Here we have Miliband in a purple tie and appropriately enough Cameron is wearing a black undertaker job.
The ties that bind...
Paxman and the sockpuppets at Westminster: Infantilist practitioners of the "ya boo you", toddler style of logic and rhetoric (with their respective gangs of immature yahoos bellowing and gesturing in teenaged faux face-off in the background).
ReplyDeleteYe gods, these are the public faces of the "oldest modern democracy" in the world?
A gaggle of yobs and gob-shxtxs, more like, with Pacman-Paxman their so-called Dark Inquisitor - medieval superstition and pig-ignorance (Duns Scotus and other genuine thinkers excepted) meets arrogant and meaningless sound bytes and morphs into utter, irrelevant and offensive absurdity.
Contrast Ms Sturgeon with this parcel of mouthy rascals and the squirming on the green leather benches of Sockpuppet Secundus, and one wonders why the Scots do not simply sever connections immediately for fear of being further tarnished in the world's eyes by these braying and myopically rampaging dinosaurs?
I guess, to paraphrase Kirkintilloch's motto: We are ca'ing canny whilst ca'ing awa' from these chauvinistic buffoons and their parasite-driven apparatus.
Patience is a virtue, but, hopefully, a clearer and cleaner future not too far ahead.