St Michael to serve up boiled-down history

THEY GAVE us underwear. They gave us chicken tikka masala. Now they're flogging British history, all wrapped up in trademark green and gold along with the heartening reassurance of a money-back guarantee.

Marks & Spencer has teamed up with Channel 4 to serve the viewer its latest ready-made convenience range: a thousand years of history neatly boiled down to 450 aerial views by helicopter.

Like an M&S pot au chocolat, it's light and easy to digest but never quite as satisfying as the real thing.

Aimed at children aged nine to 14, the series Flying Through History starts next week. There is also a special two-video presentation pack, narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi, which Marks & Spencer will stock somewhere between the floral toiletry and men's brief sets.

The miss-it-if-you-blink footage claims to contain "all the key locations in Britain which have been important in the making of the nation as we know it today". In that case, the only glaring absence is an aerial view of a Marks & Spencer store itself, surely at least as influential in shaping the nation's identity as, say, the Newbury bypass or Harlow New Town.

In a display of modesty, M&S's Marble Arch flagship store has been overlooked in favour of Bristol's Cribbs Causeway Shopping Centre as an example of the contemporary shopping experience. Although there are some classic architectural choices - the Houses of Parliament, the Globe Theatre and York Minster - the majority of sights seems as distinctive as a pair of M&S taupe slacks. Evidently the M&S helicopter has hovered a little too long over the drearier landmarks on Britain's historical map. There's Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction, Essex's Harlow New Town and, joy, Suffolk's Sizewell B nuclear power station. It's hard to imagine even Sir Derek talking up the image of Norfolk's gas rigs and a large housing estate in Bangor. You could wring more cultural significance from an M&S checkout till.

However, the high street store that still excels in the male brief set is probably more qualified than most to package and document post-war suburban landmarks in all their uniformity.

Not that this should detract from the content of the programmes, which cover history elements of the National Curriculum. Historian Sir Roy Strong says, "Anything that manages to get people interested in history is a good thing. The idea of doing it from the air is marvellous."

He is more reticent about the commercial aspect of the venture. "It's pure New Labour - the Thatcherisation of arts. For all one knows it could be Hello!'s version of British history." Better hang on to your receipt.