WATCHED Jonathan DimbIeby in Yorkshire struggle desperately to get a straight, uneliptical answer from Arthur Scargill, the fierce and famous leader of the Miners Union.
Jonathan, for my money, failed but not for want of trying. Mr Scargill has learned well from the politicians he despises. He prodded aside almost every question and yet never actually refused to answer them.
Whether you loathe Mr Scargill or love him, I suspect that, like me, at the end of it all you felt he had been playing a game that had as much to do with the miners back-kitchen as that famous Oxford Union debate on war had with a backroom Cabinet meeting that followed it at Number Ten Downing Street.
Worse than that, as the credits rolled at the end of the programme and one could faintly see Jonathan and Arthur beginning to chat, I had a dreadful, drained, uncomfortable feeling the real remarks that realty mattered were being spoken under the silence and the titles.
*"Nothing of any great value" Andrews Yorkshire Dictionary.