I do try to be a good husband, but there are some things a man just should not have to endure. Saturday is a day when I feel a particular duty to be sociable and share an evening in front of the telly with Mrs Wumber. Oh were it not so, but she has become a devotee of such dubious entertainment as X Factor, I’m A Celebrity and Britain’s Got Talent et al. Some of these I can bear in small doses, but I had the recent misfortune to park my rear just as The Voice emerged from our forbearing CRT. I lasted ten minutes before slithering off to an alternative viewing room in search of something soothing and more acceptably banal.
It’s not the format, nor some of the not-so-talented bleeding-heart contestants, nor the celebrities – though I feel confident Jessie J could be put to better use as a handbag – no, it’s the behaviour of all involved. Guff, gush and garbage; it all makes my skin creep. 'I’m doing this for my Nan who’s got hayfever', 'I’m gonna give it 110 percent', 'I’ve always wanted this', 'whoop, whoop, yeah, come on!' Oh please. And even the audience has to get in on all this disingenuous balderdashery. Whatever happened to the dour spirit of good old Blighty?
I’ve a suspicion my sense of distaste comes from the daily experiences of wandering about until I can lay my head in readiness for the chance to dream. Nowhere in the High St, the supermarket or train station do I ever meet any of these over-effusive, brimming-with-life, gushing citizens of Great Britain. Nobody gives me 110 percent, nobody gives me a standing ovation for hitting the high note of impeding a pavement cyclist unscathed. Where’s the love in somebody blocking an escalator because they have their face stuck in a mobile phone? Oh, and by the way, shop assistants, the word when asking for my money is “please”, not “then”.
The more time that passes, the more this disparity between television’s Britain and the real thing widens. Perhaps I’m missing something. Could it be that the participants in these drivelsome episodes are simply playing a game? Are they just escaping the interactive, interpersonal misery of everyday life? It doesn’t feel that way to me. It does seem to be some form of reality to many people – a hideous reality to the rest of us. Why is it not sufficient to sit back and luxuriate in the reassurance of a genuinely talented artist giving it 99 percent – to listen to true greatness rather than submerge somebody giving it 110 percent beneath screams and applause?
Television has just become an addiction, one where the source of the craving is an exhausted entity, an itch that no longer has anything to scratch it. I watch telly now because that’s what you do. An evening of television used to be two or three hours of a feast-worth-waiting-for, now it’s endless mire sparsely speckled with tiny, over-repeated gems. We used to watch the good stuff then go out. Now we stay in and watch trash before staying in to watch more. Still, you can always live life to the full next time. Can’t you?
The more time that passes, the more this disparity between television’s Britain and the real thing widens. Perhaps I’m missing something. Could it be that the participants in these drivelsome episodes are simply playing a game? Are they just escaping the interactive, interpersonal misery of everyday life? It doesn’t feel that way to me. It does seem to be some form of reality to many people – a hideous reality to the rest of us. Why is it not sufficient to sit back and luxuriate in the reassurance of a genuinely talented artist giving it 99 percent – to listen to true greatness rather than submerge somebody giving it 110 percent beneath screams and applause?
Television has just become an addiction, one where the source of the craving is an exhausted entity, an itch that no longer has anything to scratch it. I watch telly now because that’s what you do. An evening of television used to be two or three hours of a feast-worth-waiting-for, now it’s endless mire sparsely speckled with tiny, over-repeated gems. We used to watch the good stuff then go out. Now we stay in and watch trash before staying in to watch more. Still, you can always live life to the full next time. Can’t you?
