Tuesday fairly slid downhill

Press, 19 April 1985, Page 9

Tuesday fairly slid downhill

[ Review

Ken Strongman

“Fair Go” has never been consistently compelling viewing, but once a month or so it has usually been worth 30 minutes which would otherwise be idle. Now, perhaps, it is not even this. It is going downhill, becoming mainly a talking heads programme. Its presenters seem to have recognised this and try hard to make their heads talk with enthusiasm and meaning. It can be embarrassing at times. This week’s programme was about mainly trivial matters and involved essentially tedious interchanges between people and organisations. As usual, one was quickly amazed at people’s gullibility and horrified that others are so ready to trade on it. All of which is why this will continue to be a successful programme. People do find a strange comfort in the mistakes of others. Generally, “Fair Go” has become so innocuous it is

hard to comment on. It is brisk and pleasant enough, but insubstantial. It is tne sort of television to watch when one is in the mood to work out how many hairs there are on one’s head, or to write obscenities on the roof of one’s mouth by tongue. It might be possible to do all three at once. “The Tuesday Documentary” gave a thorough insight into the things that little rich boys do when they grow up. They also go downhill, but by sliding on The Cresta Run, which is 100 years old. This was another of that increasing number of documentaries that begin with middle-aged, supposed eccentrics, drink-

ing on posh trains on their way' to places normally reserved for the top of chocolate boxes. If they wore scarves and behaved like this on a train going to watch Manchester United, the long batons would be out There were some charming bits of early film of people in unusual clothes doing unusual things in St Moritz 90 years ago. They all looked like Charlie Chaplin. The apres-toboggan in the late nineteenth century seemed about as edifying as the apres-ski in the late twentieth century. Commander Krabbe though, going strong at 98, is a good advertisement for the lifestyle. He still has quite urgent memories of a female skier inadvertently showing her red flannel drawers many years ago. Nowadays, St Moritz evenings have reached a form very nearly as ostentatiously vulgar as Edna Everidge. There are inter-

national jeillery displays and model parading in swimsuits. Funds of caviar perch on srrigeons of toast. The cavern that swallow this flash brhtly enough to make one think that a family of Ur could live comfortablylor a year on the contents f the odd tooth or two of le average St Moritzite. The tobofanists themselves teete between the foolhardy at the courageous. They Ive dramatically, and saetimes terminal, high-sped accidents, and someties slide down strapped up like gridiron players. Thf have, however, spawtd some fine characters, ord Brabazon for instance ode the Cresta for the fins time on his 79th birthda; Nino Bibbl, himself from St Moritz, bminated the Cresta for nore than 20 years. This jn was broken by the first man to adopt the now cormon no-hands kamikazi poSion — on the toboggan thais. What other

variations can there be? It could perhaps be done with closed eyes, on the grounds that the person could go that much faster if he did not know how fast he was going. Of course, what it is really all about is champers on the terrace afterwards, surrounded by the upmarket Cresta groupies. These are easily recognisable. They are ' mainly blonde and crinkly-eyed from all that gazing into the glare. They all have furs and either head-scarves or cossack hats. They look as though they would be at home in white-out conditions anywhere. No, there really was something revolting about the whole business, except for the run itself which it must be admitted borders on the splendid. Splendour, finally, did not characterise the news item dealing with Hagler beating Hearns into middleweight submission. In spite of being spectacular, this demeaned the human spirit.