I am lucky to be alive at the same time as Clive James. This, some of his current tv criticisms, does not have the zest of, say, a review of Dallas in the eighties, but oh! His weakest writings are as nectar to my brain. His serious critical essays, his magnificent but under rated poetry (The book of my enemy has been remaindered is searingly accessible but be warned – tis layered wit). I have gleefully gained this week the box set of his visits to foreign countries. And his memoirs are hardly to be forgotten. But it his work as an essayist and critic (and always, always, as a presenter), and ok, as a poet, that reaches me. Cultural Amnesia is up there with The Tempest and Alice in Wonderland and a few others that I regard as necessary to call oneself educated.
Clive James reviews his pick of the week's TV, including Above
Suspicion, starring Ciaran Hinds, and Great British Railway Journeys with
Michael Portillo.
