Robert Hardman

The afternoon heat is so intense that we can see smoke starting to rise above the distant hills.

Norway consistently ranks at the top of the UN Human Development Index. It can do so because, in the 1970s, it hit the same oil jackpot as Britain - but it went in a very different direction.

From Suffolk to the Peak District to the Cairngorms, pockets of fires are still furtively flickering away, smokeless, unseen and underfoot, in roots, animal burrows or a seam of peat.

HARDMAN: So much for the old adage that there is no news in August (wrong, of course: Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, the Great Train Robbery took place that month in 1963).

True, it is not quite up there with the recent high-profile by-elections in Clacton (Farage v Binface) or Gorton (Greens v Reform), let alone Andy Burnham's victory-cum-coronation in Makerfield.

Affable, unflappable and imposing (he was a 6ft 2in ex-Olympian), the late King Harald of Norway was also blessed with good luck for much of his life. The first notable dose of good fortune occurred at the age of three, when his mother managed to spirit him and his sisters out of their home country

Affable, unflappable and imposing (he was a 6ft 2in ex-Olympian), the late King Harald of Norway was also blessed with good luck for much of his life.

You actually have to look quite hard to spot the climax to the entire story: That arrow in the royal eye. It's quite faint and King Harold appears to be holding it in his right hand.

They never sought to be stars. Indeed, many would regret ever agreeing to have their entire lives chronicled by what has often been described as the 'greatest documentary' ever made.

How much easier it would be to demonise them as either the dark forces of the Far Right or a bunch of nutters - or both.