England, the BBC, and Spooks

I like England. It was at a tube station that my dad read The Times and told me, in 1976, when I was just the right age to be gobsmacked, that an old tribe had been newly discovered (I was going to type "a new tribe had been discovered") in the jungles of the Amazon. England is the home of the pub, and I like pubs. In 1976, I went to England expecting a land of rolling green hills and golden light such as was described by Laurie Lee, and conjured in my imagination more or less precisely as Peter Jackson conjured the Borough in Lord of the Rings. The presence of motorways and South American travel agents was a bit of a shock.

I grew up listening to ABC, which meant also listening to the BBC's The Goons, and Alastair Cooke's Letter from America.

I realise how I like England when I watch Spooks, a BBC drama series about MI5's counter-terrorism team where multicultural types with classical educations prevent terrorist strikes moments before they happen with their excellent ability to get into the minds of urbane Persian speaking terrorists whose classical educations inform the code words they use. The Islamic terrorists are often cultured and have coherent demands.

The audience is invited truly to hate only the far right politicians MI5 is also tasked with bringing down undemocratically. The show is both politically correct and politically incorrect; that is, those who we know are about to take lives are satisfyingly assassinated with guns, tracked down using cool gadgets, while there is much talk about democratic values and "the heart of the British nation". The Americans are alternatively corrupt and incompetent, but usually boorish. The phrase "very well" and "My office, now" feature prominently amongst other gems of English minimalist expression. Harry Pearce (pictured) is head honcho. He is played by Peter Firth. The website has snippets of video.