Philobiblon

I very seldom watch television. I confess that I don’t own a television – I got rid of it when I worked out that the licence was costing me about the same price per hour as a cinema ticket, given my viewing habits.

I do, very occasionally however, look at iPlayer, as I happened to do tonight. When I do watch television, it’s usually history programmes, which means, more or less, BBC Four.

So tonight I scrolled down its offerings, and was astonished.

There is a very good documentary on Denman College (the Women’s Institute college) with some heartrending stories about its attendees lives circumscribed by gender norms, and Clare Balding biking the Cotswalds, which sounds jolly.

Other than that, there is, I can list as I go back to it…
* A bloke presenting a programme on whales
* A bloke running a museum
* A male comedian on video games
* A bloke talking about medieval history
* A comedy cartoon show crediting four blokes
* A bloke walking through Norman history
* A bloke looking at the history of games
* A bloke talking about a male poet
* A bloke performing at Glastonbury
* Medieval blokes trying to steal jewels
* A bloke talking about medieval sex
* A bloke talking about the Arthurian legend
* A drama about a bloke who wants to sell phones
* A bloke talking about Beowulf
* A quiz featuring Archers fans with a female presenter (sort of yeah)
* Three blokes following the trail of Hannibal the Great
* A documentary about lots of British pop blokes and Lulu
* A bloke talking about food and Italian opera
* (Yeah) A drama about a woman who wants to set up a snack bar
* Two blokes talking about how to play chess
* (Yeah) A woman talking about the Anglo-Saxons
* A bloke talking about biotechnology
* A bloke fictional detective

So if this is the men’s channel, which is the women’s?

Or maybe this is just chance. Will it be all women next week?