Frozen planet

What is it with Polar Bears? Is there something about these ursine albinos that makes it impossible to be honest about them/ First we had those claims about millions of Polar Bears being drowned because BP was stealing their ice floes to plug the Deep Water Horizon gusher (or something like that). Now this shocking revelation that parts of David Attenborough's Frozen Planet weren't actually filmed on Arctic ice floes:

The BBC has denied misleading viewers over footage shown on the Frozen Planet series of a polar bear tending her newborn cubs.

The corporation insisted it would have been impossible to have filmed the scenes in the wild amid criticism reported in the Daily Mirror that the commentary had failed to tell the audience that the scenes had been shot in a zoo.

The BBC said the way the footage had been captured had been "clearly explained" online.

"This particular sequence would be impossible to film in the wild," a spokeswoman said.

"The commentary accompanying the sequence is carefully worded so it doesn't mislead the audience and the way the footage was captured is clearly explained on the programme website."

Have to say, whoever composed the "carefully worded" line is stupid beyond the call of duty. I can imagine the nefarious forces of The Right regurgitating it anytime the BBC reports on anything, ever.

Other than that, what of the 'allegations'?

I thought the fact that nature documentaries are manipulated was so fricking obvious it didn't need to be pointed out, by and large. Still, the right are naive fools who accept such lunacies as 'trickle down theory' as gospel, so perhaps it needs to be spelled out in BIG LETTERS OF DOOM. Or the right could be eradicated. Either way, problem solved.

There was some French doco that filmed the goings on in a meadow over the course of a year (n.b. the producers did not take adequate steps to make sure it was clear some of the footage had been edited, even though the resultant documentary did not actually last a year) which had some sort of capitalist bird creature devouring insects and every time its beak struck one of the gallant little proletarian bugs it was accompanied by a ridiculously overdone thonking noise. At no point did a caption flash up advising us that this was not the genuine sound a bird's beak makes when devouring insects.

I mean, with such manipulation of the gullible viewer, how can we possibly accept anything, from the Moon landings, through evolution, to climate change? the Zapruder film was obviously 'enhanced' by the addition of blood and brain material flying across the screen. The real version shows Oswald handing a beaming Jackie O a flower.

In other news, the background music that accompanies animal antics in the wild ISN'T ACTUALLY THERE. It's added in afterwards. Cheetahs do not, as a rule, play musical instruments. So any slow-mo action of them running after a gazelle while the Chariots of Fire theme chunters along is ... whisper it ... not quite authentic. And snails don't generally listen to Bolero while they are procreating. Mind you, that's maybe because they've seen '10' and know that it doesn't work.