Monty is a chap who appears relaxed and at ease in the surroundings of his garden, Longmeadow, when he is presenting Gardeners’ World.* He has space, many sheds, and an endless supply of all manner of different types of compost, it is idyllic. This week however I noticed something that I’m surprised to have not noticed before, how incredibly expressive Monty’s forehead can become.
It was during another programme where Monty was away from his own garden, he was presenting at the Chelsea Flower show, where the expressiveness became apparent. While looking at the show-gardens there was a moment where the normally gently rippling horizontal lines above his eyes, which run almost from ear to ear across the expanse of his forehead, suddenly became vertical and contained within an area of a width of 5 centimetres directly above his nose.
Monty was expressing a small amount of criticism about the planting arrangement and other structures in one particular garden. His language was as usual measured, there was a slight increase in the passion of his delivery, but the forehead told the full story. The usually mild mannered, if sometimes intense Monty, was by the evidence above clearly apoplectic. For an instant I had visions of sledgehammer wielding demolition, and bonfires of substandard grasses.
I imagined the Briza media was quaking at his feet.**
The moment passed and Monty returned to being his usual avuncular self, and even offered explanation and understanding for why the garden was as it was. The forehead had returned to displaying the dancing horizontal lines of static from a 1970s TV tuned between channels, and all was well.
Monty forehead, with compost and gardening wound
* Gardeners' World.
** A type of grass.
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