And I think to myself, what a Wonderful World...

I have just caught an episode of Simon Reeve's new Indian Ocean TV series. This episode was the Madagascar to the Seychelles leg - and boy was it good television!

As usual, his kind of jovial, Louis Theroux-like approach manages to expose the bare naked truths behind the places and people he visits. But, perhaps unlike Louis, the impact of these facts are clearer to see on Simon's face - and in his presentation. He is not interviewing bad people and letting them hang themselves on their own words, more, he is exposing the world, and its bones, and letting us diagnose the diseases found therein for ourselves.

There's no denying, for example, that Madagascar is in trouble. A poor nation, with an exhausted landscape and tired economy, we might all know (or think we know) about the plight of lemurs, etc and the pressures of farming and deforestation... but Simon's up close, and sometimes personal, perspective in some ways gets the messages through even more clearly than any grandiose natural history programme, or cold, hard-facts political documentary.

Anyway, for those of you in the UK, it is available (for a while) on iPlayer from this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00pqbfg

Saying that, I guess it doesn't make for good viewing really. Who'd've thought a TV programme that includes showing its presenter snorkelling in pleasent clear blue waters of Mauritius and The Seychelles would make for such a depressing and sour 'after-feeling'?

I felt bad for myself as a consumer watching this programme. And then I felt bad for my country as a western, so called 'First World' state. And then I felt bad for Humankind full stop.

I struggle on most days to be a glass half-full person, and I know that is a bad way to go about living your life. The world is full of people trying hard to think of 'The Answers' and many others go about their daily lives doing good things for their fellow species.

But we can't avoid the plain fact here... we are over working this Island Earth of ours - and it is struggling to cope. And that makes me sad.

This world really is doomed unless some kind of wonderful miracle happens soon so that everyone is brought together to work for mutual benefit - for ourselves, our families... and our planet.

I want this miracle to happen before there is nothing left worth saving.

Basically, I wish I lived on the amazing  Moyenne Island shown in the programme... but then again, that would be only hiding from the truth. And there is nothing to say that place isn't going to avoid the bad times coming in the future.

Jeez, Am I still suffering from Seasonally Affected Disorder?

Sorry,
Zeeox