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OOOH, BETTY!
If there was one TV programme I loathed as a child, it was Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Widely considered "hilarious" and compulsory viewing in my family, I would find myself cringing as the hapless Frank Spencer suffered a series of totally predictable disasters while feigning innocent surprise.
It was exasperating and compelling in equal measure, but each week I dutifully sat through it, hoping that it would turn out to be as unmissable as it was made out to be, and fighting the urge to go round and give Frank a massive slap.
In those days, I got my diving fix from Stingray, Marine Boy and The Underwater World of Jacques Cousteau. Fabulous. These days, I look forward to any TV programmes with diving content, but - perhaps because I'm older and more cynical - the offerings are fairly dire.
Diving of itself isn't interesting enough for the TV. Mysteries, treasures, scary dangers and self-delusional obsessives usually abound. Somehow the weather, lack of time, toxic plankton blooms and other bizarre restrictions thwart the divers' purpose. It all seems horribly predictable.
Which brings me to the latest offering, Wreck Numpties - sorry, Detectives. Now, I have to confess that I haven't managed to watch an entire programme all the way through, because after a few minutes' viewing I feel so ashamed for the people involved that I'm forced to switch channels. But here are a few highlights, as I remember them:
"Oh! Gosh! The viz is truly dreadful!" Well that would be because you've just landed on a silty wreck like a sack of potatoes, you daft heifer.
"Which way are we going? Do you know? Is this the wreck?" Some poor diving enthusiast has drawn you a detailed plan of the site and you can't identify one part of the wreck from another. And you're an expert?
"Oh no! The conditions are so dreadful that we've lost the cameraman!" There are three pieces of seaweed floating in front of the lens, and plenty of ambient light. Even the newest UK diver would consider the conditions pretty favourable.
"Normally, with viz that bad, we would consider it too dangerous to dive." Well I dread to think where they "normally" dive, but that comment rules out the UK altogether.
"We had to end the dive because it was so dangerous." Oh, please. You were in 6m of water, with underwater comms, a standby diver, and you were attached to the boat by an umbilical. You're hardly going to run out of gas, get into deco or get separated from the boat - so apart from the danger of humiliating yourself further, where is the risk?
"Disaster struck, and in the terrible conditions we got our umbilicals entangled. This meant that if there was any equipment failure, we wouldn't be able to make a life-saving dash to the surface." OK, I take it back. In the absence of real danger, you can always use your astonishing lack of diving skills to create some. Strangely, that "life-saving dash to the surface" technique doesn't appear in any current diving manuals.
Somebody in TV land is having a laugh at our expense. Why is it that the enduring image from the series is not of a wreck mystery solved, but of Miranda, wide-eyed, waving her hands wildly at the camera and going "NoÉ ooh errÉ don't panic! I think we've lost it." Quite.
Yes, I'm being harsh. The programme seems popular enough, and surely it's better to have genuine UK dive sites showcased on TV than not. At least, that's what I try to tell myself through gritted teeth as the sight of Miranda performing underwater breaststroke fills my screen.
Emotionally, I'm transported back to the '70s. It's Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em all over again. But at least Michael Crawford was fully aware that he was acting in a comedy.
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