Panorama (Monday, BBC 1)
The Weather (RTE 1, Monday-Sunday)
Does the wife of a dead husband have the right to extract his sperm and use it to fertilise genetically modified crops? Is it unethical, or indeed, immoral, for a doctor to flatten a human embryo, stick it onto a piece of card with Blu-tack and use it as a bookmark? Is it right for a Latvian student to allow her body to be used to grow another woman's baby, and then, after the birth, to hire it out as a rehearsal space for rock bands? The question of ethics in science is a tricky one. I remember getting into a fierce row with Charlie Hurley, the old Sunderland and Republic of Ireland centre half, some years ago, and while we weren't arguing about ethics (far from it!), the genuinely nasty atmosphere was reminiscent of the one that pervaded last Monday's Panorama.
Dr Horst Klaumann from the University of Heidelburg is the type of scientist who enrages anybody who thinks nature should be left well alone. For the past 10 years, he has employed grave robbers to dig up dead bodies, which he then attempts to bring back to life using lightning and foaming test tubes. He carries out these grim experiments in his castle in Bavaria, aided by his tiny assistant, Mongo. It is no wonder that the German Green Party (for whom he has become a hate figure) has described him as "a real life Doctor Frankenstein". The analogy took on even more sinister undertones when Dr Klaumann accidentally transplanted the brain of a madman into the body of a normal person. This "creature" then escaped, causing mayhem in the German countryside until it was eventually shot by police marksmen.
"People always use the Dr Frankenstein tag to try and rubbish my work. But it's not me that's mad, it's them. One day I shall take over the world, and we shall see who's mad then," was Klaumann's sanguine response to Panorama's Tom Mangold. It is also worth noting that he eats genetically modified tomatoes, uses enhanced leaded petrol in his car, and is a keen proponent of noise pollution.
On the other side of the debate was Mary Long, a jam-maker from Sheffield. Mary grows all her own food in her hair, and has constructed her home from sand. "People think I'm some kind of environmental cnut," said Mary, "but I'm not. They're the real cnuts. If a cnut like Tony Blair can't see where this cnoutry is heading, then it's up to people like me to bring it to his attention."
As well as a strange way of speaking, Mary had strong views on the moral issues affecting fertility which echo almost exactly those of my partner, the biologically troubled nationalist poet Orla Ni Suibh. The eccentric jam-maker strongly enforces the "no sex" rule with her partner Jeff, who looked a rather sad individual, with a hangdog expression and an unkempt grey beard which danced gently in the wind. Where did this fit in with her strong commitment to "the laws of nature"? asked Mangold. "It doesn't. I just don't want to have sex with him," replied Mary.
Orla smiled at me knowingly.
THE Weather is a new show following The News on RTE 1 which I haven't come across before. Part game-show, part opinion-piece, it featured various contestants during the week guessing what the next day's weather will be like. Needless to say, every contestant was spectacularly wide of the mark when it came to predicting the various gales, cloudy spells, rain etc. which make up our laughable climate. Surely RTE would be better employing professionals from the Met Office rather than entrusting such a serious subject to these enthusiastic, but ultimately hopeless, amateurs?
After all, farmers, and - ironically - people who work in the Met Office, rely on the weather for their livelihoods. Serious forecasting should be based on science, not on the ramblings of idiotic members of the general public who would struggle to be taken seriously on any other programme, except, perhaps, Questions & Answers.
Arthur Mathews is co-writer of Father Ted (C4) and Big Train (BBC2) and writer of Hippies (BBC2)