Five days exposure to television left me feeling like Morgan
Spurlock after a few days with his food nemesis Macdonalds.
As regular BGOTR bleaders know, this sometimes ranty blogger
has been sans T.V. since last century. Unlike ex-smokers or drinkers I don’t
preach ‘no-telly’ I’m just content without it.
Also unlike those groups, I never crave T.V.
I admit to a little frustration with the standard question
that has ambushed me on numerous occasions over the last decade and a half when
people discover my television-less-ness,
“What do you DO (without a TV)?”
Sometimes I ‘DO’ nothing. Absolutely nothing. Sometimes I
sit in my living room on my own and stare into space. It’s rare but wonderful.
For the rest I would have to answer with a question - how do they find time to
watch T.V.? But that makes people instantly defensive so I stopped. Another
knee-jerk reaction when others find out I’m one of those weirdoes, is to say
they hardly ever watch T.V. But these reactions tend to fall into the contingent
who sees any divergence from how they live as an implied criticism.
But like a lot of other people, if I am in a room with a
telly which is on, I find it almost impossible to look away for any length of
time no matter what is on.
In the presence of the modern mega screen I am positively
intimidated and sense overwhelming relieve if I escape its vortex pull or
someone is brave / motivated enough to press the off button.
Last week I spent five days at my mum’s very much in the
presence of T.V. By day three I was under the spell; flicking between channels
and watching people cook, buy shit, garden and execute throw-away lines with
straight or quirky faces in a myriad of sitcoms. And I watched bits of films
that I couldn’t get into because of all the ad breaks.
I mean how can you maintain your fantasy involvement or
sense of tension or suspend your disbelief if thrills are punctuated with cleaning
products; epics are interrupted by women smiling at their gravy? Rom-coms
(which are not a fave with me anyway) are side-swiped by people grinning into
their mobiles because they just borrowed £1000 they’ll never be able to pay
back.
Who would ever guess that mothers in Syria are boiling grass
to feed their children?
The people eating crap, processed food are slim, blemish
free and full of energy. The people buying rubbish they don’t appear not to be
brow beaten by debt; they look ecstatically, manically happy. Shop workers
interact and grin and wear remarkably bright smart clothes. The people in cars
aren’t in traffic and don’t have slack arses. The people on TV watching TV all
look bright eyed and perky not the way I felt – dull, sluggish, sofa-boated and
a bit miserable.
Everything is sunny and sparkly and everyone, EVERYONE is smiling.
If you’re not careful a mild paranoia can creep in from the
sides as the telly images prod you with your own inadequacy and less than
sparkly attention to perfection in all things domestic.
Should my carpet be THAT clean, I mean do I need space age
technology just to mop the floor? I feel ashamed of my old mop and bucket.
Something else I haven’t had in over 10 years is contents
insurance – mainly because I just don’t have STUFF that breaks and gets nicked
– like a ridiculously large expensive, living room obliterating T.V.!!! But
apparently if you don’t have contents insurance all kinds of disasters can
befall you not least the ceiling may fall in and smash your wide screen telly
leaving the entire family staring at the floor unable to view any more
insurance ads... YIKES!
I had no idea that you need specific machines to cook
different foods. Old-fashioned nutter that I am I just use a hob oven and
various pans. Where do people keep all this shit? Don’t get me started on
cleaning equipment and unguents – do folk have vast underground bunkers just to
store all the T.V. crap?
But I return to the bizzarrity (!) that amongst all this
buying and cleaning and borrowing and consulting about sofas and cooking
showcase food, everyone, just everyone is happy.
Surely there aint that much Prozac to go round?
One thing was for sure I needed something to pick me up
after 5 days exposure.
But when I got home I knew what it was. Just as Mr. Spurlock
returned to his Macdonalds-free home and vegan girlfriend, I returned to my
clean but not surgically spotless, telly free house.
Recommended blog from the archive for this week
Blog 6. Please get a bigger T.V.