Wong-footed

I enjoyed Wong’s “Grow Your Own Drugs” on the telly. My staff enjoyed it and members of the Herb Society Forum all seemed to enjoy it too, but poor old James has had a hell of a hammering in the media. In the “Times Review” (7 March) Caitlin Moran described him as “an awful presenter (with an) absurdly self-satisfied brand of  cosseted eco-smuggery” and sneered at his description of himself as an “ethno-botanist” (sic) suggesting either that James isn’t a real ethnobotanist, or more likely, she had never heard of the term and thought he had just made it up for the programme.  More seriously the Horti-week daily bulletin, an internet service for professional horticulturalists,  alleges

”Kew graduates sniffy about his qualifications from the botanic gardens that he always mentions. Says he trained to master’s level. Umm. Kew says Wong did an masters in ethnobotany at University of Kent, which is run in collaboration with  the botanic garden. Best to check. No-one else bothered”

Actually I do know of Wong’s involvement with the University of Kent because we supplied a lot of the plants to their demo-garden and James did indeed appear to know what he was buying. I admit to not being conscious that the university now teaches ethnobotany to degree standard though it is something that has been talked about for a number of years. Anyway, I question whether ethnobotany  can ever be a  viable degree subject, OK so I am aware that one can get a “degree” in almost anything these days, more a reflection of universities’ desperation to secure government funding by turning out qualified illiterates  than rewarding intellectual attainment, but ethnobotany  doesn’t fall easily into either category. By definition it means getting down and dirty with the population being studied. Some ability in statistical analysis is required of course and a knowledge of biochemistry probably essential. Chuck in a bit of sociology and religious observances and you have the beginnings of an ethnobotanist, an amalgam of academic disciplines tacked on to practical skills and common sense. I emphasise this last point because I have in my possession a socking great ethnobotany book whose writer was clearly seen coming by the tribe he was surveying. I think the natives had watched the movie “The Parent Trap” in which the nasty soon-to-be stepmother is conned by the twins into banging  two sticks together to keep the mountain lions away on a camping expedition.  The joke was that there were no mountain lions within several hundred miles. In the case of the ethnobotanist, he was told that whirling a bundle of twigs around his head would keep the wolves at bay. Clearly a tribe approached by an urban academic will take the piss in the same way as I do when irritated by a reporter asking for a quote when I am serving  a customer in the market.

From her position of woeful ignorance, the “Times” correspondent pitched in to Wong’s refusal to make any definitive claims for his remedies ascribing this to the “Dr Gillian McKeith debacle”. Now I have no idea who McKeith is, whether she is really a doctor nor the nature of her “debacle” but I bet it was one of these modern scandals which afflicts television these days on an apparently monthly basis. In fact for all the  quarter of a century plus, during which I have been flogging medicinal herbs, I have been acutely aware that to make any hint of a claim in respect of a plant’s properties to even the nicest and most innocuous-seeming little old lady is to stick one’s head in a noose held by advertising watch dogs and  medical regulatory authorities beyond number.  These  and other government enforcement quangos all see herbalism as a gratifyingly soft target,  preferable to the hard work of tackling genuine malpractice or even MRSA. Above all it lays oneself open to actions that would prejudice one’s third party insurance so no one in their right mind  would do so, specially on the telly.

Moran’s implication   that  the programme was dumbed down (“thumbs up blokedom”, she called it) seems a touch harsh, I agree that Wong’s Jamie Oliver type of enthusiasm was a touch cringe-making, but then look at his patients/guinea-pigs/ whatever to get an indication of his target audience. Silly girls who like, can’t articulate a single sentence without like, using the word in it at least twice just about sum it up, and it’s on the television for heavens sake. If it’s intellect you want, switch off and go and read a book instead. As an aside on this theme,- did anyone watch the “Fat Duck” man doing a “medieval feast”; one can forgive him perhaps his banal and crass remarks about medieval sociology, reminiscent of the prejudices of  a 1950’s Hollywood director re-making say “Robin Hood” but a professional chef recreating a medieval dinner with chocolate and more chocolate…..really one despairs!.

Meanwhile back to Wong, or perhaps not, since you are probably bored with him by now, but one final thing, at least Moran managed to get his name right. AA Gill writing in the “Sunday Times” the next day referred to the programme as being “presented by the hypochondriac Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall…”. He thus  not only put one boot into Wong and Fearnley-Whittingstall simultaneously but at the same time Wong-footed himself with the other.  Not for the first time, Gill demonstrated the distasteful pomposity and delight in his own words which he seems to value above the accuracy of his reporting . This week he had a crack at Daylesford organics. Personally if I was Lady B, I wouldn’t be too worried.