poliphilo

In ye olden dayes dinosaurs were big, thuggish brutes who hung out in swamps against a background of exploding volcanoes. Now, thanks to some extraordinarily well-preserved specimens from China, we know they were also pretty, little, feather-wearing critters that glided (glode?) from tree to tree. How lovely!

I could have followed Planet Dinosaur with How to Build a Dinosaur over on BBC 4. Instead I got seduced by The Fades. I'm still not sure I made the right choice. The Fades is a slice of paranormal miserabilism about dead people wandering round looking for a way to get off planet Earth and turning nasty when they don't find it . The hero is a bed-wetting sociopath and the gun-toting female vicar (who I rather liked) got deaded in the final reel. I enjoy a scare- but the question is how much ugly, heartless nonsense am I prepared to put up with to get my fix? The more I think about it, the more I regret turning aside from the dinos. Dinos are uplifting.