Last night's tv schedule threw up a brace of insights into delusional minds.

In the middle instalment of the adaptation of The Alistair Campbell Diaries, ironically (?) broadcast on the BBC (Campbell's bette-noir par excellence), an attempt is made to remodel Tony Blair's spin-doctor-in-chief as a hard working, emotionally vulnerable pubic servant. Campbell unselfconsciously gushes over Princess Diana*, yet can't help claiming a sense of "authorship" over the protocol-smashing arrangements surrounding her funeral. He confesses "screwing up" over the presentation of the nascent Labour government's plans for the Euro- which led to The Sun dubbing Blair "the most dangerous man in Britian"- yet distances himself completely from the Bernie Eccleston "Formula £1million" affair. Campbell tries to paint himself as someone in the arduous position of having to put out fires (Robin Cook's affair; Ron Davies nocturnal "mugging"; Derry Irvine's wallpaper; Peter Mandelson in general) while attempting to get a cynical, trivia-obsessed media interested in the "real story". He resents "being the story" (i.e. doesn't like having his position examined) and despairs when the press pick up on things like Blair's haircut or coffee mug with a family photo on it. Yet it's this same ravenous appetite for detail that leads to the dissemination of the precious sound-bites that Campbell and Blair so carefully crafted and knew full well made more impact on the public than any number of earnest policies for reform ("Labour's coming home." "People's Princess." "Hand of history on our shoulder."). As a document of history Campbell's diaries are almost entirely worthless; who actually believes that this arch-manipulator is capable of stating the truth, unabridged and unspun? What is of interest is who's included, who isn't, how he portrays friends and foes, and the fun of trying to did any lost, random fragment of half-fact that might hint at reality. My favourites so far are the suggestion that the ultra-fey Mandelson is capable of "throwing punches" and called Campbell a "Calvinist", presumably as a put-down. If Mandy isn't a scion of Calvinism, with its views on the predestination of a chosen few and the virtue of investing money in property, then what the hell is he?
*Btw, whither the 10 year memorials for William S. Burroughs, Emilio Coia, Roy Lichtenstein or Terry Nation? Or better yet, how about someone saying something about Mother Teresa of Calcutta instead of banging on about some ditzy blonde who lived a life of near-unparalleled privilege who just so happens to have sired two sons who're in the position to ask the whole world grind to a halt every August?

Meanwhile, Channel 4 put out Bernard Manning's self-penned obituary. I think dying's the best PR move the unutterably hideous old bastard ever pulled; suddenly there are apologists aplenty coming out of the woodwork to tell us he was merely a product of his age (cf with the recent Tintin controversy) or that he was actually an anarchist knowingly pushing the buttons of an increasingly pc society and his public person was just that, a mask hiding the sensitive family man beneath. But at the end of his life Manning was in poor health, tired and pretty desperate. In those circumstances the real person tends to shine through, and so it did. To sit in his shitty little working men's club (threatened with closure by the smoking ban, boo-hoo), venturing out only to play dreary backrooms in Blackpool (once the Victorian gentlemen's resort of choice, now a seedy, ugly, vomit-deluged strip-club sink-hole for braindead stags and hens) and call the likes of Caroline Aherne (co-creator of one of the most successful British sit coms yet broadcast) and Arnold Brown (a Perrier Award- winning comedia) "nobodies" revealed the extent to which he'd lost the argument, and he knew it. "I played Los(sic) Vegas once! I drive a (crumbling) Rolls Royce!" cried the obese oaf, waving his ill-gotten gains and totems of past glories against the encroaching darkness. That Manning was a racist, misogynist homophobe is undeniable but I think he was more than that. He was a misanthrope; he loathed everyone, himself included. That's why he destroyed himself physically with his lifestyle and spiritually with his willful hatred. He was a comedian, he chose to mock, only because he lacked the intelligence, fortitude and courage to be any kind of reformer and fix those things in the world that disturbed him. He was a pitiful wretch, and better off dead.

The BBC4 series Crisis at the Castle profiled Patrick Boyle, Earl of Glasgow, this week and his efforts to maintain the Kelburn castle and estate on the Ayshire coast. Boyle is the living stereotype of landed gentry: plummy of voice; tweedy of deportment; eccentric; slightly at odds with the modern world and therefore prone to being both stubborn and naive, leaving him vulnerable to exploitation; theoretically wealthy but in practical terms as poor as a church mouse, mortgaged to the hilt and running at a loss. There's many reasons why his family have had to sell off and open to the public various parts of their legacy, but Boyle referred darkly and often to "one big mistake in the late nineties." I trust he doesn't mean giving me a job during the summer of '96... I remember making a suggestion to the Earl that some more artwork around the place might brighten it up, but never thought it would be taken so literally.