Dogwash

"Africa, birthplace of civilization"

Laurie Taylor speaking on the repeat of the Thinking Allowed programme this morning on the steam wireless while introducing an interview with Ian Goldin, co-author of this celebrationist crap.

As relics from the Sixties go, I generally find the ever enthusiastic and amiable Laurie quite endearing and his sociology magazine programme predictable but listenable, but this tiresome and unthinking celebrationist sycophancy — basically a more articulate variant of Jai the Prolix's thesis (Pickled Politics passim) that the British were aggressive cave-dwelling primitives who spent their days gnawing on woolly-mammoth bones and holding woad-daubing parties until those nice foreigners kindly turned up and brought us civilization, technology and curry — was pretty damned cringe-making. This Goldin character sounded like Philippe LeGrain on speed.