Here’s looking at you, by Jonathan Maitland – 4* rating

“As someone who enjoys appearing on TV, I always assumed everyone else felt the same way. If this book is anything to go by, I was wrong. I am not talking about the TV in your living room, however. This is a skilfully written and occasionally witty rant about the closed-circuit version. In the wrong hands this book could be unreadable. Wisely, journalist Ross Clark opts for a stunt to sugar the pill. He tries travelling 50 miles from his home in Suffolk to Southend Pier without once being caught on camera. He fails of course, but succeeds in proving his thesis: that CCTV is not, as one former Home Secretary might have said, fit for purpose. There is more to this book than CCTV, however. ID cards, data collection and DNA profiling all get the treatment.”