Peep show TV?

BEFORE long, according to estimates this week, Britain will spend more on overseas aid than on its own defence. There is a name for policies like this. Madness.

A STUNNING photograph appeared this week of a weasel carried on the back of a woodpecker. The weasel was looking for a kill, the bird was desperate to get free and amateur photographer Martin Le-May was in Hornchurch Country Park to capture the split-second action. Both animals escaped unhurt. A million little dramas like this happen every minute and virtually all go unrecorded. Take the punch-up I witnessed this week between a pheasant and a grey squirrel, fighting over a pile of birdseed on our garden wall. I would have put money on the squirrel, which can inflict a nasty bite. But the cock pheasant kept nimbly out of snapping range, delivered a mighty kick and punted that squirrel clean off the wall. As any photographer knows, if you'd been waiting with your camera ready, that fight would never have happened.

STILL on Wildlife, Super Powered Owls (BBC2) introduced us to these amazing birds with their silent flight and incredible hearing but failed to answer the most puzzling question of all. Why is it that we human beings are so fascinated and enchanted by owls and take such pleasure in their behaviour? I defy anyone (apart from a vole) to see a barn owl in flight and not smile. But why?

BENEFITS Britain (C5) is the perfect programme to answer all sorts of questions about the welfare state. Why does one single mother with a baby get £56 a week but a disabled older woman gets £1,100 a month? Why does the unemployed man who gets £40 for a day's work then have his benefits cut by £100? How does the £56-a-week single mum afford her smartphone? How can a self-professed "singer / songwriter" get benefits for 20 years? But the series is not in the information business. It simply finds sad cases and films them at their worst for public entertainment. Like so many of these "reality" shows, it's really a peep show. Two hundred years ago tourists would pay to laugh at the lunatics in Bedlam asylum. These days we have Benefits Britain, and don't you come away from it feeling grubby?

HOW times change. In 2015, Ukip leader Nigel Farage's definition of "normal" immigration is about 50,000 arrivals a year. In 1968, Enoch Powell's definition of madness leading to "Rivers of Blood" was - about 50,000 arrivals a year.

IN the week in which a trio of British plane-spotters were banged up in the United Arab Emirates, we are informed that the Arab world "does not understand plane spotting." Frankly, neither does the non-Arab world. Bored kids in the 1950s could be excused for train spotting but grown men and aeroplanes in the 21st century? If their idea of a good time is to stand outside an Arab airport at a time when the Middle East is convulsed with war and make a note of every aircraft arriving and leaving, you could argue that they deserve all they get. But I hope the spotters are recognised as the harmless, low-level obsessives they are and sent home as quickly as possible. In future they might find a safer hobby. Brick-heading and javelin-catching spring to mind.

DID you catch the spokesman for Kew Gardens on the radio saying the only way to overcome its cash problems was to "grow our income"? Plant some for me.