Malcolm and Barbara: Love's Farewell - Newsnight review

BBC2 Newwsnight Review (video) is the weekly opportunity for metropolitan culture groupies to visit their views on us rustic and suburban mortals. (Newsnight have ceased their podcasts - it was part of a trial they now say) This week the review team was Tristram Hunt, Tony Parsons, Kerry Shayle and Natalie Haynes whose first review was of " Malcolm and Barbara: Love's Farewell" what ring mistress Martha Kearney irritatingly, and incorrectly called a "controversial film" by Paul Watson.

Evidently we are in for a tough time at 9pm on Wednesday August 8 (ITV1) when this heavily trailed film absorbs us for 90 minutes in the 11 year struggle of Barbara to love and cherish her husand Malcolm as he descends into the terminal hell for both him and his family of Alzheimer's. “Alzheimer’s is not seen as an illness,” says Barbara. “We all get a bit forgetful as we get older, and so on. And it’s minimized."

Tony Parson's sensibly dismissess the PR "controversy" in an unwise and clumsy metaphor as a "storm in a skinny latte cup" and admits it's "a tough watch", Shayler says it's "heartbreaking and heartrending" and Tristram Hunt says it's" wrenching to watch".

As to the alleged scenes of death, Kerry Shayle caps any stupid and pointless argument .." We are all grown ups here..we know the film has been edited".

Natalie Haynes is described as a stand up comic - as a sit down critic she managed to contribute absolutely nothing to the understanding of the film or add in any way to the debate. (about this film or any other item)

As a much needed antidote it might be worth considering the genial view of elderly absent mindedness which we unwisely associate with Alzheimers, which Tony Parson's grimly reminds us that in what the film calls "the scourge of the 21st century", which with an older ageing population this film faces an, "uncomfortable truth".

Rainy summers drive me indoors to dip (yet again) into the Wodehouse chronicles of Blandings .. this time Lord Emsworth ( a non too distant relative of Lord Patel it seems in this case) is faced with his 12 year old nephew whose (mis)use of an airgun has caused the "blister" Baxendale to receive one on his posterior...

" Like so many men advancing into the sere and yellow of advancing life, Lord Emsworth had an eccentric memory. It was not to be trusted an inch as far as the events of yesterday or the day before were concerned . Even in the small matter of a hat which he had laid down somewhere five minutes ago it was nearly always useless. But by way of compensation for this it was a perfect encyclopedia on the remote past. It rendered his boyhood an open book to him.

Lord Emsworth mused on his boyhood. Happy days. Happy days."

Knowitalz.com is an Alzheimer carers blog from N. Carolina looking after her dad. Take a look. A dutiful daughter manages to inject some earthy humour into an unwelcome task.