Faced with these daft tests, I don’t blame any baby for having a sulk
Scientists just love labels. they’re only happy when they can reduce the wondrous complexity of life to a few narrow, arbitrary bands. the child psychologists on Babies: Their Wonderful World (BBc2) took this simplification to a gross extreme when they declared that there are just three basic human personality types. We’re all either ‘excitable’, ‘cautious’ or ‘calm’.
to test the theory, we watched three six-month-old infants playing with a jack-in-the-box. Reuben giggled when the toy sprang out. Livvy looked worried. Logan stared despondently as though life were proving a grave disappointment.
that settled it, according to presenter Dr Guddi singh. We’re all excitable Reubens, cautious Livvys or calm Logans, and we’ve been that way since before we could crawl.
But babies are creatures of infinite variety, and there’s no end of explanations for their reactions. Perhaps Reuben is a horror movie fan in the making, who loves to be scared. Maybe Livvy was hungry, or cutting a new tooth.
And my guess is that brainy Logan was appalled at the inanity of the games these scientists expected him to play, when instead he could have been studying philosophy or listening to Mahler.
Reducing all humanity to three basic categories is both insulting and pointless. Anyone but a scientist knows what nonsense it is — even tadpoles are more complicated than that.
Dr Guddi would have made a good deal more sense if she had tried to apply the 12 personality types of astrology to the babies . . . except, of course, that scientists tend to run round the lab shrieking at any mention of star signs.
the jack-in-the-box experiment was not a one-off. the babies were tested for political correctness, with two plastic figures — one male, one female. they were told to pair one doll with a vacuum cleaner and the other with a car.
infants who suggested Mummy does the housework while Daddy drives the motor were, presumably, sent away for cultural reprogramming. still, for an audience of a certain age, the subjects of these tests made adorable viewing.
if you’re old enough to be a grandparent, you might find this and other tiny tot shows, such as the secret Life Of Five-Year-Olds or Old People’s Home For 4 Year Olds, are irresistible. the best thing about babies on tV, after all, is they don’t wake you up at 4am demanding a nappy change.
Will Millard’s personality type definitely isn’t calm or cautious. He’s more inexhaustible, like a rubber ball fired from a bazooka in a confined space.
the explorer bounced from the middle of the irish sea to the decommissioned trawsfynydd nuclear station on Hidden Wales (BBc4), and he’d barely started.
After that we took in a ruined castle, a wartime mustard gas factory and a bomb shelter for the national Gallery’s old masters. He went scuba diving, abseiling and pot-holing. He blew up boulders and waved radioactive fission rods around. i can’t imagine he ever sleeps — he probably just climbs into a giant hamster wheel and runs furiously for eight hours a night.
this sort of magazine show usually requires at least three presenters. Will managed admirably on his own, and packed in a huge amount of detail.
the piece on Britain’s first submarine, invented by a prizefighting clergyman, was a gem, as was the demonstration of slate drilling by hand.
Hidden Wales is a reminder of how much we miss the British history series, coast, and how good these travelogues can be when done well.