'We thought that a good resolution would be to scrap the television'

Published on Saturday 5 January 2008 16:54

I THOUGHT festive television programmers did a good job. Their frantic 'more is less' efforts to prove that nature does not, in fact, abhor a vacuum – huge miserable slabs of EastEnders, Emmerdale and Coronation Street, reality shows, puerile comedy, Graham Norton doing anything – meant so much more time for books and walking and must have worked wonders for crossword competition entries.

If we hadn't watched news bulletins, football highlights, Father Ted and a couple of 'classic' adaptations that occasionally coincided with the books they were based on, our TV set would have been redundant.

We also missed the Queen's speech, for the 32nd year in succession; only a pity because we apparently missed one of her rare jokes, about the need to take more interest in those "cut off from society". Proof, if it is needed, that in spite of their best efforts the royals still don't appreciate irony.

As I scanned the bleak, featureless waste of the programme guide each morning, with as much hope as the Ancient Mariner looking for a helpful breeze, it led to the thought that a good resolution would be to scrap the television.

For news, except for the impact of extreme events such as 9/11, radio and the best newspapers do it better. You can keep working to a radio while absorbing information. You don't have to swear as the main TV news bulletins assume a viewer IQ of 12 with words-pictures links that Big Brother contestants must find tenuous.

So far, so predictably grumpy, and a conclusion that we don't need TV for news. Or for sugar-coated Oliver Twist and Cranford adaptations that I can read in the form the author intended. As for a Sense And Sensibility that begins with a late-night fireside seduction, the birling sound you hear can only be Jane Austen.

Then there is what now passes for humour. Few of us are strangers to bad language, and some of us use it too often. But the relentless barrage of the F-word on television confirms what one of my teachers pointed out long ago about frequent use dulling intended effect.

His example was a fellow soldier who said: "They put an effing bit of margarine on an effing bit of bread, stick on a bit of effing jam and call it an effing sandwich." Cue almost any television comedian now, except Ken Dodd and Morecambe and Wise repeats, and he was describing their basic script.

The more we pondered, the more it seemed the television set was on its way out. Box sets of favourite comedies can be bought, as can DVDs of most old films. The internet has its reference uses. As a last resort, and I mean that most sincerely, there is YouTube.

Then we remembered Creature Comforts and Gardeners' World; one of us thought of cookery programmes and Wimbledon; another thought of football and cricket, and if only Bruce Forsyth would retire we might watch Strictly Come Dancing again. None compelling on their own, or even combined.

So what does the fact that we still have a television prove? That we're as weak-willed as 99% of the population, that's what. But next year…