![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Stephen Fry in America
Nov. 3rd, 2008 01:10 pmI've really been enjoying this series, it's Stephen Fry after all, though perhaps not as his most cutting. And I've certainly learnt loads of things. Until the most recent episode I didn't realise that Oklahoma was next to Texas, I thought it was more in the middle and further north. If I thought about it at all, which was probably only if I were reading/watching 'The Grapes of Wrath'.
I just wish it wasn't quite so whistle-stop. Couldn't they have added a few more episodes and done things in more depth? For a start it gives you no concept of the vast distances involved, as if popping from Montana's border with Canada down to Idaho was a half hour drive, at most. And then some states, such as Idaho, get barely a mention. I'm hoping that the accompanying book rectifies some of this because it isn't constrained by what can be fit into 6 hours of television. I shall wait for the paperback though because the hardback seems very large and unwieldy. Which given what I've just been moaning about you'd think would be a good thing but I'm contrary. I also hope it explains how he broke his arm.
Whilst watching this week's episode I couldn't help wondering why human beings like scenery. Some of the views of ice-capped mountains were breathtaking - but why? Supposedly the idea of human beauty is based on biological fitness - which is why men really prefer women with hips and breasts to size 0 whatever the media says. And also explains our preference for symmetry apparently. So I could see that those who prefer a savannah heaving with wildebeest ripe for slaughter or forests filled with edible plants would probably prosper and leave more offspring than those drawn to deserts. But this doesn't explain the allure of mountains and mountainous scenery. Perhaps it's a characteristic with neutral fitness that has just spread randomly.
I just wish it wasn't quite so whistle-stop. Couldn't they have added a few more episodes and done things in more depth? For a start it gives you no concept of the vast distances involved, as if popping from Montana's border with Canada down to Idaho was a half hour drive, at most. And then some states, such as Idaho, get barely a mention. I'm hoping that the accompanying book rectifies some of this because it isn't constrained by what can be fit into 6 hours of television. I shall wait for the paperback though because the hardback seems very large and unwieldy. Which given what I've just been moaning about you'd think would be a good thing but I'm contrary. I also hope it explains how he broke his arm.
Whilst watching this week's episode I couldn't help wondering why human beings like scenery. Some of the views of ice-capped mountains were breathtaking - but why? Supposedly the idea of human beauty is based on biological fitness - which is why men really prefer women with hips and breasts to size 0 whatever the media says. And also explains our preference for symmetry apparently. So I could see that those who prefer a savannah heaving with wildebeest ripe for slaughter or forests filled with edible plants would probably prosper and leave more offspring than those drawn to deserts. But this doesn't explain the allure of mountains and mountainous scenery. Perhaps it's a characteristic with neutral fitness that has just spread randomly.
