Episode 8 Points of View

Good afternoon and welcome to Points Of View.

The odd programme has been broadcast this week in amongst the football

and they seem to have shared a theme -

that we are really terribly proud to be British.

No stone on UK soil has been left unturned

by programme-makers this week.

We've had snatches from home videos across the country

from a single 24 hours on BBC Two, called Britain In A Day.

It's one of those simple, brilliant ideas where you think,

"Why didn't we dream that up years ago?"

A big hit.

Next, Griff Rhys Jones donned his walking boots -

or should that be wellies - to bring us Britain's Lost Routes.

There are runnels, but then there are miles and miles of sandbanks,

and what the hovercraft does is come out to rescue people

who've gone out for a walk, or chased their dog,

then got caught by the tide.

Ah.

That is a request to tone down Griff and the fancy effects

and show more British by-ways, then.

While we're zooming around the country, on Tuesday,

The One Show leapt on the bandwagon

and took the opportunity to draw our attention to the Best of Britain.

Hello and welcome to The One Show: Best Of Britain, with Lucy Siegel.

And Matt Allwright,

and another chance to see some of our favourite One Show films.

The One Show editor Sandy Smith was responsible

for pulling together this particular celebration of Britishness.

Well, The One Show has been on air for five years now

and we've made something like 4,500 films, would you believe,

and this was a fantastic opportunity to bundle those up.

Even if you've seen a film

about conger eels in Albert Docks in Liverpool

or the very little-known story

of Britain's most famous silent movie star, Eileen Percy, from Belfast,

if you've 4,500 films of three, four, five minutes' duration

and you only show them once,

that's not a great use of licence-fee payers' money,

and there'll be plenty more to choose from for highlights for next year.

So, there may be more.

Meanwhile, over on BBC Four, they have decided that paying homage

to the whole of the British Isles is a bit unnecessary,

so they're just telling us about London,

with a London season, no less.

Strype didn't see the Thames as a barrier to invasion.

He saw it as the lifeblood of the city.

A port that welcomed goods and people from all over the world.

Like light itself, Turner believed it gave life to everything.

With its tall buildings, its houses and shops,

it was, in a sense, a city within the city.

And talking of London, viewers Pepe and Marion Tomei,

who lived through the changes to Canning Town,

have been fascinated by BBC Two's new series

looking into the development of our suburbs,

called The Secret History of Our Streets.

My name is Guiseppe Tomei,

but well known to everybody around this area as "Pepe".

I run a salon and I've been here 47 years.

My wife insisted to watch the programme

The Secret Of Our Streets.

I couldn't believe my eyes, what I was seeing.

So we're going back

to one of the tens of thousands of streets Booth mapped.

To tell the story of how, sacrificed to new ideas of urban planning,

a 200-year-old community was bulldozed.

For some unknown reason, they wanted to condemn Deptford.

What we saw in the programme actually mirrored

exactly what's happening to us today in London in 2012.

The plan is for London to be destroyed and re-engineered.

Each neighbourhood given a single, defined purpose.

In a few weeks' time,

they want to knock all this down to build a skyscraper place again,

because this is going to be the new city, that's what they want to do.

Watching the programme, it's making me feel all raging,

because I've been suffering this here for the last three or four years.

It's earmarked for widespread demolition

and the creation of efficient new tower blocks.

Watching that programme made me feel it was like my story.

It's a busy, thriving high street,

where traders live above their shops and prosper.

I used to have a salon in the market

and it used to be so big and so busy.

I had 12 people working for me,

compared to now with two or three people.

One character, the man who was a stallholder, I think,

and he was cleaning vegetables.

What will you do if the market closes?

It was a funny moment, but really, really sad as well.

I could see the community that was in the area, the community, the people.

Everybody I used to know, in the market,

everybody used to know about me.

And it just reminded us so much

of when we were the last people in Rathbone Street market

and we literally were the last people.

Yeah, it's me. It is me. Yeah.

In the baskets would have been Jersey potatoes.

I had to email Points Of View and just say to them

well done on an absolutely fantastic programme.

It mirrored exactly what's happening to us in 2012 and I just felt

I needed to shout it, write it, whatever.

I just needed to express my feelings.

A window on the world of Canning Town.

And Louis Theroux has this week given us a window

on the even wilder world of the pornographic film industry in Los Angeles.

Now, he made a ground-breaking documentary

on this twilight world in the 1990s.

Now Louis has revisited to catch up on changes.

This is stuff...

Here's the thing, here's the thing, Mr Thorax -

where the business is going now

is it's acceptable to watch pornography.

It's acceptable to sit down with your girlfriend or your wife

and introduce her to pornography.

We did have to hunt quite carefully for a clip

with no sex or violence there,

and by the way - we have to under the rules.

This is a pre-watershed show.

Go past the watershed

and you find a cavalcade of gritty documentaries and edgy dramas

eager to cram themselves into those post-9pm slots.

And young viewer Josh is taking issue

with how this cut-off point is currently working.

I think it's very prejudiced of the BBC schedulers to assume

that all 13-year-olds, such as myself,

are sitting inside playing video games or are out playing football

or watching EastEnders, whereas the real situation is some of us,

like myself, are wanting to sit inside,

educate ourselves watching these entertaining documentaries

which are on after nine o'clock on a school night,

when I have to go to bed.

The Indian Ocean. Home to the world's most exotic islands.

DRUMBEAT FROM EASTENDERS THEME TUNE

I can't understand why soap operas such as EastEnders

are on before nine o'clock,

when they have very strong language and very adult storylines.

This stops now, yeah? You and your freak of a fiance.

Whereas some of these documentaries, er, do not.

Today, when we think of ancient Rome, this is what we see.

I would like the BBC schedulers to switch these documentaries

with these soap operas, so that people like me

do not feel they are missing out

on these very interesting television programmes.

Josh quite rightly bemoaning the lack of history programmes

for those with early bedtimes.

Well, that completes our review of offerings this week

for those that DON'T like football,

but the football-loving half of the nation spent the last seven days

tuned into coverage from Poland and the Ukraine,

and both camps have had plenty to say

about the effect their opposing tastes have had on their week.

Now, we've not had many of these this series - the howler.

These are the continuity mistakes

that programme-makers hate us pointing out

and we love drawing attention to.

The latest casualty is Casualty, and a case of disappearing spectacles.

Missing glasses? Let's take a look.

So what are the chances

that his brother's completely sickle-cell free?

One in four.

I am a doctor, too!

You hide it so well.

Never mind Dr Hanna,

perhaps the director and editor need to find their specs.

In two weeks' time,

we have the Controller of BBC Daytime, Liam Keelan,

in the hotseat,

so if you have complaints about the morning menu

or advice for afternoons - or indeed, early evenings -

do get in touch.

Here's the address, the old-fashioned one.

You are also more than welcome to email, of course.

Or you can jump on the messageboard, crash helmet on...

Or phone us.

The number is charged as a local-rate call from a landline.

Goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media