Unlikely theme well handled

Press, 12 July 1988, Page 11

Unlikely theme well handled

A.K. Grant

on television

One of the ways you can tell a good writer from an ordinary writer is that a good writer can make something ordinary interesting. This was demonstrated by Helen Paske on "Fourth Estate” last Friday evening, with a piece she wrote and presented about what one would have presumed to be the less-than-riveting subject of the ways in which newspapers go about publishing corrections. It would be fair to say that people in journalistic circles were not tremblingly awaiting the hammer-blow of Ms Paske’s verdict on this subject: very few people in journalistic circles knew that corrections would be her theme and those who did wondered what on earth she would make of something so unpromising. What resulted was, as I say, an interesting piece on a not-inherently-in-teresting subject, and it embodied a sensible if not original suggestion: to wit, that corrections should be published in a regular

column in a regular place, instead of being scattered like confetti all over the broadsheet or tabloid as the case may be. Corrections, if this device was adopted, would receive more attention than they do now, and for that reason the suggestion may not find favour with some editors or managements. On the

other hand, what prouder gonfalon or oriflamme could a newspaper bear than an empty corrections column for the day? It all puts one in mind of the no doubt apocryphal story, familiar to older journalists but perhaps not to younger readers, of the report in a Wellington paper in the early years of this ceni tury, which described the then Chief Justice, Sir Robert Stout, not, as the reporter intended, as a “battle-scarred veteran” of some campaign or other, but as a “bottlescarred veteran.” Naturally Sir Robert was not pleased at this description, and a judicial thunderbolt issued to the newspaper concerned. Aghast at what it had done the newspaper published a grovelling apology the next day, keening and moaning over the “bottle-scarred” error, and assuring its readers that what it had meant to say was “battlescared.” The re-runs of the Muppet Show on Saturday mornings, under the title of “The Muppet Show

Command Performances” are a reminder of how funny the muppets are, and how durably so. One gets a chance to reacquaint oneself with one’s favourite characters, your reviewer’s being the Swedish chef. It takes a bit of doing to make funny a sketch which consists of gibberish topped off with a sight gag, but the Swedish chef never fails to entertain, and in his stoic bewilderment at the way all his recipes and techniques go wrong he represents one of mankind’s most enduring traditions, the tradition of lousy craftsmanship.

The drummer Animal had a splendid duel with the lovely Rita Moreno in the Peggy Lee number “Fever” on Saturday morning. These muppet revivals take one back to that innocent era of the early eighties, when Margaret Thatcher was deeply unpopular, David Lange was just a booming echo in the mangroves of Mangere, and Roger Douglas was on the verge of leaving the Labour Party. Ah, happy days ...