Moaning about the moaners

BBC Breakfast was on the box in my bedroom on Thursday morning, and guesswhat they were talking about? The new series of Planet Earth, the BBC documentary series which is simply stunning in terms of the images it hascome up with.

OK, so it's not the most heavyweight of subjects for the BBC to be chewing over, but this certainly wasn't some annoying plug for a programme which happens to be on the same channel.

No, the producer of the programme was on to answer criticism about the programme. Specifically about one bit where one of the two-man crew which had spent eight months in Antartica filming penguins, actually helping one out.

In a nutshell, one baby penguin had fallen into a hole in the ice. Itcouldn't get out and its mother couldn't get it. So this camerawoman got out a knife, cut through the ice and the baby penguin escaped.

Back to its mum,who had sat by placidly as the camerwoman had done her work. There were cheers in our house when we saw that. But it appears some people- presumably sad, lonely people who like to make the lives of others as misearble as their own - decided to complain.

On what grounds? The general thrust appeared to be that they should have let nature take its course - ie letting the penguin chick perish. I know the argument about birds goes that you should never interfere with a chick because its mother will disown it, but that obviously wasn't the case here.

Then there's the one about not interfering with wildlife because it will lose its fear of humans - and that obviously can be bad news because it can make them easy prey. Highly unlikely, in the Antartic, wouldn't you say?

And as for not interfering with nature - you try living in the frozen wilds for eight months without building up some sort of relationship with a colony of birds who have watched you with bemused interest.

It was interesting to see there weren't any complaints about the crew at the Artic using a gun to scare off a polar bear who had become very interested in the crew's lodgings.

Presumably the survival of the fittest argument wouldmean a giant bear should have eaten them alive. I think not. But there's no reckoning with TV complainers. I get the feeling that, for many of them, Points of View is the reason they keep going.

It's true, theprogramme's still on - tucked away on Sunday afternoons (no doubt a source of complaint too).

It has its own website too. Within minutes of Friday's Have I Got NewsFor You, while perhaps the rest of us went for a beer or flicked channels, our TV complainers were on there discussing whether it was a vintage episode or not. Another thread complains about a voice used in a documentary being 'insulting.'

And not surprisngly, when asked about what people thought ofthe new Points of View messageboard, the first reply the BBC got was: Rubbish. What else did they expect from the sort of people who complained intheir droves about Jonathon Ross's quizzing of David Cameron on Wossie's late-night chat show?

If you remember, he asked if you used to 'pleasure' himself over pictures of Margaret Thatcher. Cameron dodged the question - presumably there's a focusgroup working on the policy behind the idea now - but 250 complained.

Why? Because it offended them! Surely the easily offended know not to watch Jonathon Ross? His act is hardly new! He's made millions with the same act, and it was shown at 11.30pm! So the complaints pored into Ofcom, which decided the BBC had done nothing wrong - and pointed out Margaret Thatcher hadn't complained about it. Why not? Perhaps because, even in her limiting state, she knows better than to watch programmes which she knows she wouldn't enjoy.

Say what you like about her, but she's obviously still got more of a life than the offence-hunters who probe around the channels looking for things to be affronted about. Now if anyone ever comes across one of them in need of help, just remind them about survival of the fittest.