Watching Andrew Marr’s Britain from Above (BBC1, Sunday) gives us an extraordinary picture of our country. Clogged roads and railways, the smoking nation’s ageing arteries, run between massive landfill sites and even more massive sewage works. Ships crawl, bumper to bumper, round our shores. Biblical swarms of aeroplanes darken our skies. The ether hums and crackles with information overload. Total meltdown is never far away.

 

And because so much of this is represented graphically on this show – we follow dots of light as they trace the paths of traffic, flights, telephone calls etc – it looks as if Britain is populated by millions of glow worms. 

It’s nice to be brought down to earth (by going up into the sky, interestingly). There is loads of fascinating stuff here; I was particularly interested in how the delicate balance of our national electricity supply is affected by what’s going on in EastEnders. 

This was BBC Tv at its best. Search out the web page for fascinating inofrmation about this extraordinary country.