The Hobbit ,The Inklings And The New Middle Ages

In 1994 the BBC 2s nightly cultural round up show The Late Show produced its own program on the new middle ages fronted by journalist Benjamin Wooley who has recently published a book on Doctor Dee Elizabeth the firsts Merlin.The Late Show was the kind of program that has been removed from the BBCs major  channels as part of the dumbing down process and now confined to its cultural ghetto BBC 4.In this program Wooley looked forward to the new millennium as part of a return to medievalism.Part of the doomier predictions made in the program was mention of the Black Death which was linked to various 1990s bogies such as AIDs ,SARs and avian flu.In the nearly twenty years since the  program was broadcast global pandemics have been conspicuous by their absence so in that respect there has been no return to medieval conditions.Likewise the feared rise in global temperatures and melting ice caps has failed to materialize.The most interesting prediction in the program and one which proved correct was that of the demise of the printed word in the wake of the internet.As the Internet had only been open to the general public for a few years at that point this was quite an accurate prediction.