OCCUPIED COUNTRY

Tell It Like It Is

You know, for an occupation that acquires more than its fair share of opprobrium, there are a surprising number of journalists who could be described as honest, rigorous and independent - regardless of which paymaster they've served. I'm thinking James Cameron, Michael Herr, John Simpson and even Boris Johnson - and that is just a few. There are many more. Tonight BBC4 had the fabulous idea of screening a documentary detailing the remarkable doggedness of Charles Wheeler's incisive brand of journalism.

Never one to shy away from the difficult question, Mr Wheeler is now in his 81st year and his mind is still razor sharp. Tonight's documentary was yet another coup (well in my opinion at least) for BBC4. No doubt it will be on BBC2 in a few weeks.

BBC4 comes good again tomorrow with a documentary or two about Gram Parsons. As a teenager (and as a thirty-something) I could never understand why anyone would think that Gram was 'cutting edge'. His stuff sounded just like all the other C&W I'd ever heard. I later realised I hadn't grasped just how conservative the Country scene was and that the simple fact of putting a rock drummer on these tracks made them futuristic in the extreme. He influenced so many others as well. Most notably Keith Richards and, to a lesser extent Mick Jagger. Let It Bleed and Exile on Main Street especially have some heavy Gram input.