I have taken to railing impotently at inanimate objects. In the last 24 hours I have rained foul-mouthed abuse at the work intercom system, which had failed to let me into the building just because I was not typing the passnumber in properly, and seriously entertained thoughts of picking up my home computer, throwing it out of the window, and proceeding to kick it around the back yard while yelling like a crazed chimpanzee, until it was broken up into a pile of plastic, wires, and shattered components. Only the thought of having to explain my actions to C- ‘well, it kept hiding the document I was saving and then wouldn’t let me into Word, the bastard’ stopped me. And the thought of having to go to PC World and spending £1000 on another computer, I suppose.
Given my irrational state of mind right now it is possibly only a matter of time before the TV gets its screen smashed in with a hammer in return for Trevor McDonald giving me a funny look in between reading out news items. And the telly is big, expensive, and rented, so it is a good job we have called the rental people and asked them to take it back. They are coming in 4 weeks’ time, and after that there will be no more Trevor McDonald (and a good job too, I am sure I heard him calling me a puff the other day while shuffling his papers at the end of News at Ten), but also no more Jeremy Paxman, Desmond Lynam, Charlie Dimmock or Gordon ‘I used to be on Krypton Factor and now I read the local news’ Burns. I will forget what they all look like and walk past them loftily in the street, if they ever walk down my street, which is unlikely, as for one thing, it is a cul-de-sac.
What the hell am I playing at here, you may well ask. Wasn’t it just the other day I was telling you about all the useless TVs I had had to put up with in my days of comparitive poverty, and how now I had a great big fuck-off surround sound thing the size of a small cinema screen which I could not get enough of? Well yes, but when Charlotte said the other day, quite out of the blue, ‘I’ve been thinking- how about we try to do without the telly?’ I quite heartily agreed.
So what are we thinking of? Well, for one thing, they say too much telly can be harmful for babies, and to judge by his wide-eyed immersion in Euro 2004 (Charlotte said he liked the bright colours but I know he is a budding football connoisseur and was merely enthralled by the Greeks' use of the 3-5-2 formation) I would say little Frank is quite prepared to develop a set of square eyes given the opportunity. And as for the grown-ups, well I suppose we have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the gogglebox. The programmes we like, we really like, but (I suppose like most people) for every hour we spend watching something ‘cos we have planned to watch it, we spend about 5 hours watching (or having on in the background, which is just as annoying, at least for me) some old rubbish like, oh I don’t know, Groundforce Celebrity Makeover Can’t Cook Won’t Cook Challenge- Uncut’. And we don’t think we quite have the willpower to just give up the brain-numbing shite and watch the good stuff, so we are just going to have to give up the whole thing, and enter a whole new world of doing everything we don’t do enough of, like reading, and gardening, and sewing, and getting a man to put shelves up (I may be going to have time on my hands but I am not taking up DIY again, not after the Bike Falling On My Head Incident), and of course, singing ‘Five Little Ducks’ to little Frank and hoping he finds it as entertaining as the Tellietubbies. In short, we are going to Make Our Own Entertainment Just Like In The Old Days, and as result we will be calmer and more fulfilled, and (in my case) less likely to get stressed out and rail impotently against inanimate objects, apart of course from all the cushions which Charlotte is threatening to sew and spread liberally round the house like small fluffy landmines once she gets the sewing machine out. But that is OK, cushions are made by women to be sworn at and thrown across the room by their menfolk, unlike, say, home computers.
So that is the plan. In our new TV-free life we are going to be fulfilled, and spend the evenings playing scrabble and having animated conversations about matters we have read about in the lofty journals that we have arranged on our lovely shelves (our lovely shelves which are not going to fall on our heads because they were put up by a professional). On the other hand, of course, we could sit staring at the space in the wall where the big fuck-off telly used to be, secretly wishing we could eat oven chips and fall asleep in front of Holby City like in the good old days before we started getting ideas above our station. And little Frank will pine for Tellietubbies and the intriguing tactical ruses employed by international football coaches, and be one of those weird kids at school who don’t have a telly, and later on be unable to join in nostalgic conversations with fellow University students about kids’ TV shows and think it is our fault and hate us for ever. Or (this is the third and final possibilty) we could all get cold feet during the 4-week notice we have had to give the rental people, and cancel the cancellation while laughing at our ridiculous and far-fetched presumption.
Cold Feet- there’s another quality programme we won’t be seeing any more, by the way. So next time John Thompson follows us around Didsbury Tescos (like he did the other week) we won’t even recognise him, we will just wonder why all the other shoppers are staring at the small fat man over at the meat counter. And the same goes for next time I spill Steve McDonald’s drink in a trendy Manchester nightspot, or walk past Mike Baldwin singing softly to himself on Deansgate possibly slightly worse for wear at 2:30 in the afternoon, or sit behind Curly Watts at a Manchester City game. I will be aloof of celebrity, like a High Court Judge.
And of course, all this non-watching TV time can be given over to blogging! So next time you click onto Crinklybee and see a great big massive post like this one has turned out to be, you know who to blame. That’s right- it is all that Trevor McDonald’s fault, for calling me a puff.
But Match of the Day will be back in a couple of weeks...
Posted by: Paul | July 30, 2004 at 04:24 PM
I know! I know! What am I thinking of??? I will just have to make up for it by watching some of the 5000 live Sunday games in the pub (and for NUFC games I have a Newcastle-supporting mate round the corner with Sky who is well used to me turning up at 3:55PM with a couple of cans as 'entry fee'....
Posted by: jonathan | July 30, 2004 at 04:57 PM
I went through the same process years ago (1998 I think) and never looked back. After a couple of weeks of cold turkey I went a full five years with no TV in the house. Then, when I moved in with people who had a TV I just never watched it. Current housemate has cable and everything and after an initial bout of morbid curiosity I never bother with it. That said, I'm loving the whole DVD thing, but half of them I watch on the laptop.
Here's a tip - if you like watching stuff but don't want to be tied to the broadcast schedules de-tune your TV (so all the channels are white noise) and you don't have to pay for a license. Then you can watch DVDs and/or download your favourite shows via BitTorrent with no fear of getting sucked into mind-numbing hell.
At the very least go a month or two without it. It can be quite the revelation.
Posted by: Pete Ashton | July 30, 2004 at 11:01 PM