IS IT TIME WE GAVE UP WATCHING TV?

As a rule I try not to watch too much television but during lockdown, having cleared out my flat (thank you refuse collectors for taking it all away), and now on my 43rd book, I have been exploring other forms of entertainment. Confined to home for 12 weeks, for which I am secretly very grateful, with two others for company who refuse to play board games, TV watching has become the go-to option for at least a part of the day.

The problem is that I am not interested in watching sport, soaps or serials and prefer not to be disgusted or frightened. Notwithstanding the restrictions imposed by Covid-19, I prefer to view something that will provide me with information, education or amusement. I do confess to having a mild obsession with quiz programmes (and wish they would cut out the chit-chat) but it seems that our television, despite there being literally hundreds of channels available, has little to offer apart from reality TV (television on the cheap), re-runs and celebrity watching, none of which I find appealing.

Having furnished several properties over the last 30 years with purchases from auctions, car boot sales and friends’ cast-offs I decided to watch Antiques Road Trip recently but became so cross I had to switch it off.

Those of us who like a good rummage are well used to the high mark-ups of antique dealers and know better than to offer the asking price. However, it would seem that if you are due to appear on television all sensible pricing goes out of the window and the dealers buying trinkets for the televised auction are often able to obtain discounts of over 50%. This is unrealistic and intensely annoying, leading punters like myself to imagine that we may be in a position to bargain to the same degree, which of course is never the case. Infuriating.

On the plus side, I am looking forward to viewing the remaining programmes of ‘Great Paintings of the World’ with Andrew Marr, whose knowledge and enthusiasm is something to aspire to, and late at night for a minute or two I am all agog at Family Guy…. how they manage to get away with it I shall never know.