Doomwatch!

Above, top Jane Fonda in her eponymous role as “Barbarella”, bottom, the screen image of the TV series “Doomwatch”.
One of the electronic gadgets that I use fairly frequently is a Sony HDMI CD/DVD player Model DVP-SR760H. I bought it less than a year ago when my video recorder which was the sort that could record onto a hard drive or a DVD packed up. Since I have a television that is called a “smart TV”, rather than fork out a considerable sum on a direct replacement, I saved a considerable amount of money and bought a DVD player for under £40. Since that time I have purchased a number of DVDs in what are called “boxed sets” and also old movies released on DVD.
One of these boxed sets is “Doomwatch” which was a BBC sci-fi series screened between 1970 and 1972. The title was well suited to the script as it was about a government agency led by a Doctor Spencer Quist (played by John Paul) and was responsible for investigating and combating various environmental, scientific and technological threats.
The series was set in the then present day and COVID-19 (and the way the virus is being handled) would have been right up the scriptwriter’s street!
I have a considerable number of such sets. Why? Well, I’ve long watched the BBC’s “Doctor Who” but this latest incarnation with it’s scriptwriters all “on message” with the latest eco PC script has proved too much so for relaxation I like to go back down the exceedingly politically incorrect Memory Lane of old TV series.
Of “Doomwatch” itself, it was a good series. The plot was fast paced and well written. The actors and actresses played their parts well. One of the nice things in retrospect is the fact that the clothes worn by the cast were then (1970-1972) the height of fashion which means that the “look” of the series is very dated. Which is OK.
I have used the classic image of Ms Fonda as Barbarella and combined it with the opening screen image of “Doomwatch” to make a point.
I have long admired Jane Fonda principally because, although I have not agreed with her political views, I’ve always admired her courage to put her head above the parapet even though her theatrical agents and accountants must have been screaming; “Don’t do this! It will trash your career and cost you a fortune in lost income!”
Such appeals to a person’s self interest would in most cases have worked but not in the case of this redoubtable lady.
Had the lady not had decided not to trash her career and instead quit the US for a time and let us say took a starring role in “Doomwatch” she like me would be able to reminisce about the series, but as one of the cast and not like me a mere viewer.
That she did not do this however makes no difference to one very pertinent fact: her age.
The lady was born on the winter solstice Tuesday 21st December 1937 and as such is 82 years, 2 months and 22 days old. Had COVID-19 struck at around the time “Barbarella” opened in New York on Friday 11th October 1968 when the lady was 30 years, 9 months and 21 days young, COVID-19 – had she become infected would not have been a problem for her. Unlike now.
And this is the “Doomwatch Point” – COVID-19 is highly discriminatory in the way it attacks it’s victims. The young and the healthy are little affected. The old and the frail have a risk of death with is positively co-relational to their age and infirmity.
The FACT of the matter is this: We the people are partly in control – whatever the government decides to do. The way we can help keep the mortality rate of COVID-19 down is both simple and difficult. It is to prevent the old and infirm from catching the virus.
The BG’s message to Ms Fonda?
Keep yourself to yourself as much as you can Dear Lady and shop online.