Michael Portillo smashed his clenched fist into his palm and said, "You have to crush the enemy." The crushee was Gordon Brown. That was a few days ago on This Week (BBC1). So I was surprised to hear him say on Horizon: How Violent are You? (BBC2) last night, "I haven't got an aggressive bone in my body. Why people would want to knock the blazes out of each other I can't imagine." He did, however, admit to inflicting grievous mechanical harm on two fax machines, one computer and an alarm clock. Very much, as it happens, like Gordon Brown.
He was reassured that, violence-wise, he was probably average, and I particularly enjoyed his response. "Average!" Edith Evans used that tone when saying "A handbag!", as though she were picking the word up with sugar-tongs. I am not sure what we got out of it all. Portillo got a trip to Bolivia, which allowed him to flourish his fluent Spanish like a cape, but it seemed a long way to go to see a punch-up. Under the crust we are all molten and, when the crust cracks, the scalding lava comes bubbling out. What bubbled out of Portillo, subjected to sleepness nights with crying dolls, was paranoia. He did not, fair's fair, throttle the dolls, but he did begin to imagine the production team were programming them to scream louder. Suspected they were plotting behind the scenes. Ganging up on him. Bunch of bastards, basically.
What a refreshing change to see rhinos losing their rag. A Place in the Wild (ITV1) is a two-part documentary about a couple of Englishmen, Batian and Richard, who run a 90,000-acre wildlife conservancy in Kenya. We seemed to arrive halfway through the party, uncertain how they got the job or the money or precisely what a conservancy is. Batian, a name I continually stubbed my toe against, and Richard are not cursed with charisma. The work is sweatingly hard and they seem more interested in doing it than talking about it.
Luckily, when they need expert help with lions and elephants, they call in a couple of sparkling communicators, Elaine Matteson and Dame Daphne Sheldrick. Elaine is a Lumleyesque blonde and a crack shot. "My job is to catch lions, collar them, monitor them and, if they are killing livestock, I deal with that as well." Of course you do. As her small son said, playing with his toy lion, "Mummy catch it." A lionness moved dimly behind a veil of shrubbery. Elaine darted it, collared it and seized the chance to check its teeth ("Left lower canine, broken tip") and measure its tail. Then the tail twitched. "Everybody back off! When you are trying to measure their tail and they're flicking it around in your hand, it's time to get out of there." I hope you are taking notes. Also, giraffes live in towers - I bet you didn't know that - and one man can hold a giraffe down by keeping its head on the ground. Mark you, that's true of me, too.
Dame Daphne Sheldrick looks as if she runs a good gels school in Sussex but she has, in fact, been looking after orphaned baby elephants in Kenya for 50 years. There may not be so much difference. A baby elephant, found caressing its mother's corpse with the tip of its trunk, was flown to Dame Daphne's orphanage where, in so far as an elephant can hide, it hid. Dame Daphne said, "There will be a period of grieving for her family that may last many weeks. She'll want to spend time on her own and won't want to play for a couple of weeks at least, but one day she will be a matriarch among the wild herd and bringing back a wild-born baby to show her human family, the keepers." Really, she could be any headmistress discussing the latest sobbing, homesick addition to the school.
Lord Reith would have been proud of Ten Things You Need to Know about Sleep (BBC1), a no-nonsense programme from Scotland. Although he might have drawn the line at Kate Silverton in a bubble bath, looking shockingly nude without her specs.
It was cheap and cheerful and everything seemed to work. They cured insomnia, snoring and jet-lag (don't eat at all while flying). If you are a stand-up comic who can't go to sleep, clench and relax every bit of your body from the toes up ("Squeeze your buttocks as hard as you can") for 15 minutes before bed. If you are a breakfast-show presenter who can't wake up, try a blue-light lamp. Eat protein for lunch and carbohydrates for dinner. Don't drink coffee or wine before sleeping. Draw your curtains. Smell lavender. Sweet dreams. God bless.
