TV Review:The outlandish claims of the 9/11 Truth Movement (spearheaded by an odd coterie of sullen hoodies, disaffected university professors and sweaty televangelist types) were treated with scrupulous fairness in 9/11: The Conspiracy Files. Each fevered allegation was fully investigated - then systematically deconstructed, bit by bit.
The "truth-seekers" did their best. They breathlessly lined up their most convincing evidence that 9/11 was not a terrorist attack, but a nefarious plot by a clique of oil-rich cronies around President Bush who were determined to provoke war in Iraq, in order to satisfy their dark imperialist desires. Obsessively combing news reports and footage of the attacks, the theorists began to piece together a vast jigsaw of government mendacity. Hmm, they said, the debris field left by flight United 93 spread over several miles, so it must have been shot down by the US air force. And the hole made in the Pentagon by the other hijacked jet was pretty small; that's because it wasn't made by the jet at all, but by a pilot-less drone. And hey - did you notice the way the Twin Towers collapsed so cleanly? That's got to be because they were secretly demolished. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
Really, this film could just as easily have been called "War of the Nerds". On the side of the "truth movement" was Dylan Avery, a cocky and charmless youth, maker of the cult 9/11 conspiracy internet film Loose Change. Opposed to him (on the side of reason, proper engineering knowledge and sensible haircuts) was Davin Coburn, a wholesome young scientist from Popular Mechanics magazine, who annoyed Dylan by establishing definitively that the Twin Towers weren't demolished. It all got rather bitchy.
"Their authority is tractors, right? They should stick to what they know," stropped Dylan. Raw nerves - how they sting.
But the trouble with conspiracy theories, and the reason a programme like this is doomed to failure, is that - being inherently irrational, a mishmash of half-truths, inaccurate news reports and pure fantasy - they are impervious to rational critique. They simply will not die. In fact, serious refutations such as this are grist to the mill. Already, internet chatrooms are fizzing with the "10 key facts that the makers of 9/11: The Conspiracy Filesdidn't want you to know".
So why do people so desperately want to believe these grand speculations? Fittingly enough, it was Frank Spotnitz, one of the creators of the X-Files, who came up with the best answer. "These theories work like secular myths: they seem pleasingly logical, and they justify what you already believe. Living in the shadow of Watergate and the Vietnam era, our first instinct is to believe we are being lied to. We are - but only in a million small ways."
DYLAN AND THE boys (and yes, they were all boys) saw themselves as counter-culture patriots, loyal to the memory of an innocent, uncorrupted America. A similar nostalgia motivated the foot-soldiers of the British public toilet campaign, showcased in One Life: For the Love of Loos. These toileteers saw their efforts to improve the standard of public toilets in Britain as a way of re-connecting with "our proud national heritage". To them, the loo was the cornerstone of civilisation: after all, "nothing much can happen unless there is a toilet close by".
It was inevitable that the programme-makers would play this one for laughs. So of course, there was lots of parpy flatulence-inspired music.
They even included a tinkly stylophone rendition of Jerusalem, presumably as a knowing dig at the toileteers' flag-waving tendencies.
As you would expect, the campaigners themselves were a fastidious bunch. They were also evidently terrified of that uniquely British upper-middle-class sin, appearing vulgar. But Richard Chisnell, founder and head of the British Toilet Association, could barely contain his enthusiasm. Spying a fine example in Blackpool, he exclaimed to his wife, Christine, "Look at that lovely toilet seat. I would have no problem sitting on that, would you dear?". (Surely a bit vulgar there, Richard, old chap?) The sight of a filthy loo, on the other hand, gave him real grief, as though society's ills were reflected in that dirt-splattered seat.
Given Richard's ardent patriotism, he could scarcely contain his delight when he was invited to run his professional eye over Jane, Duchess of Northumberland's bog. It was a beauty, of course, specially installed in her new water-themed garden at Alnwick. "Large urinal," enthused Richard. "And it smells beautiful," cooed Christine. "I wonder what he and his wife talk about over dinner," smirked the Duchess in an aside. What a funny little man, you knew she was thinking. But that smirk soon turned into a rictus grin when she was presented with an absurdly ornate two-foot-high silver trophy at Richard's Loo of the Year Awards.
"Maybe I'll put it in the staff loo," Jane smiled bravely. (Implication: "because it's sure as hell not going in mine".) There was a poignant moment when Richard recalled his unpleasant early toileting experience: possibly a motivation for his calling in life?
But the dark continent of Richard's bathroom habits was soon abandoned for the sunnier shores of the Loo Awards. "Eating, drinking and toileting - we've done all three today!" he announced triumphantly after the ceremony. "Sorry, I'm a bit tired," he added, perhaps fearful of the old vulgarity creeping back in.
Don't apologise, Richard, it's the cycle of life. Even the Queen does it, you know.
WHILE JANE NORTHUMBERLAND was very much the bright, modern aristocrat, chatty and informal in her posh-casual daywear, RTÉ's portrait of Sheila Wingfield, Lady Powerscourt, whisked us back to an era of rigid social hierarchies where the Anglo-Irish chatelaine reigned with an icy grandeur. Arts Lives: Hiding in Plain Sightoffered a gorgeously filmed evocation of that time, and a compelling insight into the secret life of a flawed and complex woman. The iconic Sir John Lavery portrait of Wingfield - her imperious, lustreless stare, dark sculpted eyebrows, cruel red mouth - haunted the film. Mistreated and unloved by her mother, Wingfield seemed incapable of mothering her own children: chronically addicted to opiates, her sole compulsion was to shut herself away and write poetry.
Although her work was admired by WB Yeats, Elizabeth Bowen and James Stephens, she never achieved the distinction she craved, and she remains a significant omission from anthologies of Irish writing: perhaps, as the film speculated, as a result of her Ascendancy background. "She was as Irish as Yeats," said Eavan Boland, "but she was an outsider. It wasn't an option for her to drink all night with Kavanagh."
It was the small, fleeting sketches and anecdotes that made the remote and rather chilly subject of this documentary flame to life: Wingfield holding a beauty case rattling with pills in one hand, a glass of wine in the other; her daughter Gráinne's embarrassment when her mother took her shopping in an ambulance, getting it to stop outside Brown Thomas; her deaf son Guy's recollection of the long corridor to Wingfield's bedroom, to which he could only go if she called him, and where she often mocked and beat him; Wingfield's grand renovation of Powerscourt House in the hope of attracting a host of literary visitors, none of whom ever came. It could all have flowed from the acerbic pen of Molly Keane, that unsurpassed chronicler of the inadmissible passions and appalling secrets of the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy family. This was a lesson in documentary-making - a fascinating story, well told.
THAT'S NOT SOMETHING you could say of The Bad Mother's Handbook, a one-off comedy drama starring Catherine Tate as Karen, a whingy divorcee suffering an identity crisis after discovering she had been adopted. It was supposed to be "a clear-eyed look at motherhood, both hilarious and wise", imparting the lesson that "love is ultimately the most important thing of all".
The plot was populated by the usual cardboard cut-outs: Charlotte, the mouthy teenage daughter with a fine line in withering contempt (and pregnant by her promiscuous boyfriend); Nan, the comfortable-bosomed granny going quietly bonkers; Steve, Karen's feckless layabout ex-husband: yup, the gang's all here. Oh, and don't forget Daniel, the speccy boy with a heart of gold. You just knew he was going to pop up, with his Jarvis Cocker glasses, didn't you? After a rollercoaster-ride of emotions, it all ends swimmingly - the wain is born, Charlotte and Karen make up, Nan arises Lazurus-like from her stroke with barely a hair out of place, and Speccy gets the girl. Aw, shucks, ain't life grand?
Hilary Fannin is on leave