Well-reasoned TV drama - a solace in hard times

There are advantages with unpaid leave. For instance, in between job applications, there is nothing to stop me from taking TV breaks during the day which distract me from my cold, crackpot parties with scarily focused party leaders in the Swedish Parliament and other annoyances.

I finished watching "North and South" (again, the Gaskell version) last week, and unless the book is radically different from the adaptation, I remain puzzled about Gaskell's "Christian Socialist" label. That would be "Socialist" as in "not Socialist at all but quite able to see both sides of an industrial quarrel and with no wish to dispose of factory owners either violently or by unspeficied peaceful methods". Well, not that I'm complaining: a lucid, balanced look at 19th century Industrial England was just what I would have wished, but did not get, from Dickens in "Hard Times". In "North and South" (the adaptation at least), the social conflict is so well handled that the romantic part of the story is less captivating by contrast. Of course you want the beleaguered mill owner Thornton (the exceptionally handsome Richard Armitage - but why doesn't he shave?) and the ex-vicar's daughter in straitened circumstances Margaret Hale to lay their differences aside and realise that they love each other. But the obstacles in their path are, as so often in romances, largely self-imposed. You know they will kiss and make up, and when it happens you could be forgiven for thinking "what took you so long?". When Thornton reaches an agreement with the union leader Nicholas Higgins - who shares his faults: they are both proud, stubborn and contemptuous of weakness - you feel, on the other hand, that they have achieved something important, and that real issues have been resolved.

I'm not going to switch allegiances, however: Dickens is still the master storyteller. He may not be much good when it comes to insightful comments on the Condition of England, but his characters have that extra oomph which few other 19th century authors ever come close to - even when he's not trying very hard. Gaskell's characters are a bit colourless by comparison, and a problem from my point of view is that she just doesn't "do" villains. Milton (Yes, I get it, Mill-town, plus Margaret thinks she has lost a paradise when moving from the South - but still, as a town-name it is just as unconvincing as Coketown) could have done with the odd Bitzer or Slackbridge. And as for the hero's stern mother Mrs Thornton, Mrs Sparsit in "Hard Times" out-gorgons her effortlessly.

My main cold-curing TV at the moment is not a costume drama at all: I'm re-watching "The West Wing" for the umpteenth time. It's great entertainment, at the same time as it makes you feel intelligent for being able to follow the political arguments and get the jokes. Some questions raised are more pertinent than others right now: there's one episode called "Five votes down". Guys, I know exactly how you feel.