Inventing the Indian, BBC 4, 9pm.

When I was little more than a larrikin in my granda’s eyes, we used to say things like white man speak with forked tongue. Geronimo speak with forked tongue. Adult speak with forked tongue. Until we got sick of it and shot up everybody that disagreed, including ourselves, but we refused to be dead. We were in such good health that putting us to bed was the equivalent of the massacre at wounded knee. What has this got to do with inventing the indian? you might ask and I might ask, because I’m just making it up as I go along. And such was Rich Hall’s take that it felt like much the same thing. Rich Hall is not an Indian sounding name and so it turned out to be. He had a faithful sidekick, a Tonto character, to keep him on the straight and narrow. Much of their lines seemed to my ears scripted. Sure the indian nations were herded like sheep and butchered in the same way. They were exploited. And as one indian commented people say, but that was in the past. His riposte: so was 9/11 seemed unscripted and better for it. There were comparisons with rich towns dependent on government employment and aid and poor Indian towns, but that’s what rich people do. They steal from the poor to give to the rich, Robin Hood, Robin Hood. Holywood, doooo, nooooow. Nooooow, nooow noow. Rich Bonaza. Bonaza. Bonaza. Steal from the poor to give to the rich, Rich Bonanza, Bonanza.