There's been a trend in recent years toward 're-enactment' documentaries. It isn't enough to simply tell us what went on, and show us maps, film clips, music, sounds, and the odd talking head, but now you have to get people doing these things to see what it's like. My own feeling is that you're going to fail, because the only people who know what it's like are the ones who went through the experience for the cameras, and then we only see the edited highlights.

There was one where a bunch of pilots were trained to fly a spitfire. The chief flying instructor at the club where I used to fly once met a spitfire owner when he dropped in to refuel. "Why not take her up?" He was told. Some people have all the luck. That said, modern regulations would prohibit me from flying an old warbird until I'd been suitably trained. Flying is none too cheap in Britain and these sixty or seventy year old warbirds are very expensive toys, never mind the purchase costs. You might expect to fork out two to three thousand pounds an hour. That's around twenty times what it cost me to fly.

I must admit to a certain envy there, but the whole attitude was very modern day, with none of the 1940's demeanour from the officers. Everything was done in a sort of chummy, personal manner, without any air of authority at all. As living history it just didn't convince. Last night they did World War One, getting two expert pilots to fly old wood and canvas planes to 'see how it was'. Having a young woman as a talking head was very politically correct, and at least she'd read up on the subject, but she seemed a bit incongruous talking about what was an all-male arena in a chivalrous but chauvanistic era. You couldn't help but feel that she wasn't as worldly wise as the program needed her to be. Standing beside the memorial of Albert Ball in the middle of a french field was a very touching gesture yet one she didn't have the gravitas to carry off.

Noticeably the expert pilots were flying these old aeroplanes in a very sedate manner. It isn't that they can't fly - they were once members of the Red Arrows aerobatic team and still fly formation displays - but hearing about Werner Voss avoiding six british fighters and very nearly getting away from them, clearly they were being very restrained. I've flown Cessna's more ethusiastically than that. Okay, they had good reason. These were valuable airframes that were other peoples property. But does that mean you got a feel for how it was?

As documentaries go, it wasn't a success.

Meanwhile, Back At The Library

I knew something odd was going on the moment I entered the library this morning. Where did all these people come from? There's some sort of society meet going on and crowds of pensioners are milling around in conversation with each other. Keep the noise down, please!