Tonight’s televisual entertainment was twofold. A repeat (I missed it the first time round, dunno about you) of Bill Oddie’s How To Watch Wildlife saw everyone’s shortest Goodie meandering around his manor of Hampstead Heath extolling the various natural virtues of said urban wilderness through each of the four seasons.The difference between Oddie’s style of wildlife presenting and David Attenborough’s current series Planet Earth couldn’t be more different. Attenborough’s relaxed, measured narration is the to Oddie’s frantic bumbling and constant self-interruption. “As you can see up in this tree is a – Oooh hang on, there’s a kingfisher! Look!”
I’m sure one would never catch our Dave kicking through piles of autumn leaves (totally unheeding of the hidden perils left by the four-legged visitors to the Heath), whilst informing viewers that in America autumn is referred to as “The Fall” then bursting into a Frank Sinatra number. I felt quite sorry for Bill when the lack of fauna that weren’t crows started to get to him a little in winter. Infront of the overcast and bleak view out to Canary Wharf, he urged the viewer to “regularly visit your local patch – every day if you can.” Needless to say there were no scenes shot at dusk. Bill must keep those to himself. “I like to be where it’s at, where the action is, but without the Heath I would go totally nuts.” Right you are Bill.
I’ve only visited Hampstead Heath a couple of times. On my next visit I will make sure to look out for the two escaped green parakeets that live there (“I prefer the story that they once belonged to Jimi Hendrix!”). No such tropical fauna or seamless link to this week’s Ghost Whisperer – a bizarre episode where Jenny Love Hewitt visits a circus. Without revealing too many spoilers, our Jen sorts out a magician (defiant), his brother (dead), his wife (psychic AND pregnant) and A HORRID VENTRILOQUIST’S DUMMY NOES. Add to that a fair few plot threads that aren’t resolved at all and an abrupt ending with Jenny in tears, and you have the makings of classic telly.