Come on, everybody's nicked something from work ? haven't they?
I used to work for a large American investment bank. No, seriously. Not on the trading floor though, or in mergers and acquisitions. I was in maintenance, a gofer. I wore a white boiler suit, I had a tool kit and an orange trolley. I moved things, I fixed things, I crawled around under the desks of the masters of the universe.
And I nicked things. Not on a grand scale. I wasn't snaffling euro bonds or transferring millions to my offshore account (though I would have if I'd known how). No, I took stuff from the store cupboards. Coffee mainly ? catering-size tins of Nescaf�, which I gave to my friends (more wealth distribution than theft). And cleaning products. Loo paper, obviously, and stationery. Ink cartridges were probably the most valuable thing I took.
I'm not proud; it was stealing. But nor am I very ashamed. Given the scale of it, the enormous wealth of the company, the salaries of those people (literally) above me, my poverty at the time ... well, was it really so bad?
These are the kind of issues that are explored in Tony Basgallop's Inside Men (BBC1). We're not in a bank here, but a security deposit, a big warehouse full of cash that people are employed to count (do these places exist?). A couple of the guys who work there ? a security guard and a warehouse man, both of whom have financial problems (plus these are difficult economic times, we're constantly reminded) ? are siphoning a bit off. Fifty grand actually, but that's little compared with the millions there. Still much bigger than my level, but again victimless ...
Except it's not. There is a victim: poor, uptight, number-crunching gamma-male depot manager John (so excellently played by Steven Mackintosh). Very insecure, to be managing a security depot. Up until now, he's covered any losses out of his own pocket (as well as winning manager of the month competition every month). But 50 grand? That's out of the question, especially now with a new adopted daughter. Anyway, he tells the two culprits after catching them, what's the point of putting your hand in the till if you're only going to pull out 50 grand? Why not take the lot?
Whoa, is timid, stuttering John suggesting a heist, on his own depot? In fact, that's where the whole thing starts off ? a proper robbery, with men in scary masks, pump-action shotguns, a blown-off knee-cap, screaming staff. John looks like the victim here: they're holding his wife and new daughter hostage at home, he has to help the masked men help themselves, to millions. Then we jump back a few months, and begin to work forwards, through the two employees' thieving, and John's discovery of them. So do they then team up, are they behind the big one? Is this mild-mannered John's master plan?
It looks that way. It also looks as if we've almost caught up with ourselves, the past with the future. Can there really be three more episodes?
There must be more twists and turns. And I'll be tuning in. It's great. A tense, knuckle-gnawing thriller, with a lovely stark industrial quality to it ? refreshingly unflashy, unOcean's Eleven. They are great characters ? real and believable, not just John but Marcus (Warren Brown) and security guard Chris (Ashley Waters) too. And at its heart there are interesting issues and questions of morality. Perhaps more relevant to some of us than to others ...
Oh, come on, everyone's done stationery, haven't they? No? OK, the coffee and ink cartridges were wrong. And if any of my current bosses are reading, that's obviously all in the past. Just my gym stuff in the bag ...
So how does Raymond Blanc: The Very Hungry Frenchman (BBC2) go? The famous French chef is pottering around France ? his own home region of Franche-Comt� in this first one ? in his 2CV. He tastes, he eats, he cooks, he chuckles and says "Ooh la la". He drops in on his mum, and some old pals, he eats some more, says "Ooh la la" some more. He visits a Comt� factory, looks up at all the cheeses. "Look at this," he says. "It's a cathedral of cheese." Then he visits a sausage factory, looks up. "That is a cathedral of sausages ..."
It's lovely ? for Raymond. I'm a little bored, to be honest. And do we really need another, self-indulgent, celebrity chef food programme? Sometimes, it feels like gavage ? we're the French geese, and we're being force-fed.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/feb/02/inside-men-raymond-blanc-tv-review
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