The archive footage of those early days also confirmed the paradoxical duality of ecologists' attitude to mankind - an unusual mix of vanity insignificant

The archive footage of those early days also confirmed the paradoxical duality of ecologists' attitude to mankind - an unusual mix of vanity (insignificant as we are, we can destroy a planet) and contempt (little allowance is made for our long history of solving problems as well as creating them). On the other hand, it isn't safe to dismiss current warnings. In some cases this was because they had simply got things wrong; the one commodity that proved to be truly unsustainable was the conviction that doom was just around the corner (people had failed to realise that when commercial companies talked about "reserves" of particular commodities they were usually thinking of short-term operations - there was no market in prospecting for what you didn't yet need to dig up). But so far the series has proved fascinating, charting the way in which the shrill alarm calls of the first activists have been disproved by events. You are introduced to new interviewees with sequences that suggest a chimpanzee has stolen a camcorder - the frame sways and lurches and occasionally swings away altogether to perform a cack-handed zoom on a pot of flowers.

I couldn't detect any informative content to this infuriating indulgence; it was simply as if the director felt that her subjects need all the extra animation she could give them.It is true that the subject matter is unlikely to lift the heart on its own - whatever you think about environmental issues they are more conventionally associated with guilt and anxiety than with pleasure. You left them at the airport, about to catch a plane back to the green, green grass of home. I hope future episodes include some account of how they feel after they've jumped the fence.In stylistic terms, Scare Stories (BBC2), a series of programmes about the history of the environmental movement, is distinguished by passages of studied incompetence. That these sounded a bit strained - spiders in the garden, carcinomas in the sunshine, sharks in the sea - only added to the unavoidable pathos of their situation: not happy there but bound for discontent here. This wasn't entirely fair - they had just decided to trade in their waterfront house (complete with beautiful garden and swimming pool) for the dubious charms of Liverpool - so he had caught them at the very moment when they needed to shore up their nerve with a lists of God's Own bodges. At one point Hill had interrupted this couple's long duet of disenchantment with a series of title cards reading "And another thing" - a teasing device which amplified the sense that they had turned themselves into connoisseurs of complaint. And that diagnosis appeared to be supported by scenes showing one of the poms shooting a commercial for the Australian Cheese Board, an advert which consisted of a smug farmer singing "Anything you can do, I can do better" to various indignant European peasants.

Australian cheese is best served with chips on both shoulders, it seems. After a while, though, you began to hear that whining noise yourself, particularly whenever Jackie and John Boyle were on screen. In the early stages of Pommies (Channel 4), Brian Hill's engaging account of life Down Under, you could have concluded that Australians had all succumbed to a kind of cultural tinnitus - hearing a persistent needling drone where none actually existed. In Australia, it seems, anything short of wrapping yourself in the national flag and singing a rousing chorus of `Waltzing Matilda' is regarded as surly bad manners. Named an officer of the National Order of Merit by President Francois MitterrandFilms `Les Amants', 1959 `Jules et Jim', 1961 `Les Amants', 1957 `Les Liaisons Dangereuses', 1959 `The Last Tycoon', 1976 `La Femme Nikita', 1990 `Until the End of the World', 1991 `Map of the Human Heart', 1993 `The Summer House', 1993 `The Lover', 1992 `The Proprietor', 1997Jeanne Moreau Platform Performance, Monday December 1st, 6pm, The National Theatre, box office, 0171-928 2252. Aussie joke first of all: "How do you know when a planeload of poms has just arrived?" "Because when the engine stops the whining continues." Apparently expatriate Brits get a lot of this kind of thing - largely, it seems, because anything short of wrapping yourself in the Australian flag and singing a rousing chorus of "Waltzing Matilda" is regarded as surly bad manners. Then I said, `It's not me.' I could never have lived that way so why should I envy something that I couldn't be? The actress has fed the woman and the woman has fed the actress." Born in Paris in 1928, screen debut in 1948. When we leave she is wearing a pair of pounds 100,000 diamond heart earrings with a matching knuckle duster diamond ring that she has borrowed for a Vogue party the following night.Back in the apartment she recalls a recent golden wedding anniversary party given by some old friends "I was surrounded by all these people my own age There was so much love and warmth I felt a little envy.

Do we want to sit, do we want to drink? Frankly I want to move in. She cannot see herself slowing down."Come on," she says suddenly. "Let's go and have some fun." On go her sunglasses and several minutes later we're in one of the swankiest jewellery shops in town She smiles graciously at every assistant in the shop They gaze back with undisguised awe. They all just "adore" her coat, her scarf is "superbe", the colour is "charmant" and everything else is "tres, tres bien" This is the full-on star treatment.

Next week she flies to Berlin to receive an achievement award from the European Film Academy and this Monday she is in London to give a talk about her life and career at the National Theatre in her capacity as patron of the French Theatre Season. She has just finished directing a series of commercials for Air France and she is President of Equinoxe, a scriptwriters association which encourages all aspects of independent film-making. Facing obstacles is very healthy and good because usually it's the obstacles that make you grow. I'm much happier than I was since I've accepted that."So much so she reckons life is better than it's ever been. "Instead of being moved to tears, half destroyed I just keep calm and try to figure out what's going on Life has been given to me to improve.