While Children in Need (BBC1) sets out to prove how charitable we are with the contents of our piggy banks - not to mention the extent of our willingness to sponsor our workmates to lie in baths filled with baked beans, when really we'd like to sponsor them to do some work - Unreported World (Channel 4) contains irrefutable evidence of exactly how caring and generous a nation we are. Not content with overfishing our own waters, we are now, as part of the European Union, sharing that experience with the good people of Mauritania. Aren't we nice.
There may not be giant cardboard cheques being swapped in this particular relationship, but there is a lot of money involved: £54m, to be precise. The EU pays Mauritania hard currency in return for access to its coastal waters. So far, so much more evidence of the good side of globalisation, you might think. The developing country gets heaps of cash in return for use of its natural resources, and we get a well-stocked fish counter at the supermarket.
How wrong you would be. This deal, while not as apocalyptic as the hysterical tones of reporter Kim Willsher might suggest, is yet another example of the evils of globalisation. Locals claim that EU trawlers are systematically overfishing and exhausting the seas, making it impossible for the native fishermen to sustain their livelihoods. Typically, no bureaucrat will take responsibility for a situation that is the international equivalent of date rape - and, just as typically, it is the ordinary people who suffer the most.
A stark illustration of the short-termism that governs politics both at home and abroad, this is one of those brave, revealing and impressive documentaries that finds you contemplating writing to your MP to complain about the inequities of the world and how Something Should Be Done. Of course, this new-found awareness soon wears off - usually as the opening credits roll up on Friends - but it's nice to know you can still get riled up about injustice in the world.
Meanwhile, on Children in Need, we had the BBC weatherwomen singing It's Raining Men. Talk about using an Elastoplast on an axe wound.
