Telly.
Last night I had cause to tell a pal I don’t watch much telly. “She doesn’t” confirmed my husband. Recently I had cause to tell another pal the same thing. (Maybe I didn’t have cause, I can’t tell because my internal editor doesn’t show up for duty when she knows I’m going out for a drink. She trusts me to get by just opening my gob and shooting out whatever flotsam and jetsam happens to be floating round the inside of my cranium. She is a fool. She, is also, however, just a floaty concept, I have final say over me and I can see an opportunity where I coulda kept my mouth shut and didn’t. This bothers me because noone likes to hear themselves sounding like an ass. I spend all day pretending I’m not an ass which involves time and effort and a good deal of denial, so it’s wincing when I realize I might really be the very same ass I’m pretending I’m not. If you see.)
At any puddling rate, it did so pass, that I mentioned I don’t watch tv. I know exactly what this sounds like and so I tried not to sound too airy about it. Therefore I’m betting it came across as pretty damn airy. I could tell my pal had heard people say that before - we all have, they’re usually making a big (airy) deal of it - and was probably thinking, yeah, right I bet you think you’re such an intermallectual and all, not swimming in the pop culture pond with the rest of us.
I know my pal thought that because I’ve heard people carrying on that way myself and thought the same thing. There are people who I know veg out with the TV guide every night of the week, but will declare (airily - I don’t think it can be helped, it’s an inherently airy-arse thing to say) to people at dinner that, acksherly, they rarely look at the tv much other than for the news, isn’t that right, Clyde?
They do it in the same voice that they’ll tell you they’ve never once thought an uncharitable thought about the Pakistanis/Germans/Japanese or that they wouldn’t dream of drinking red wine with turbot or that they’ve never been anything but 100% behind their son dropping out of uni to become a juggler. They’re the same people, as Medbh was saying recently, who make you take your shoes off in their house.
There’s a snotty, snooty superiority associated with not watching tv: pop culture is much too trivial for you; you wouldn’t deign to watch as much as an episode of Eastenders; you certainly wouldn’t want to sully your mind with the sort of trash the hoi polloi are watching, for good grief’s sake.
I don’t think that. Well I do a bit - I’m as snotty as the next person when it comes to supping from the common pop-culture soup-trough muchly because some spots are murkier than others but, after all, this is the thinking of a person who grew up in the days when Noel Edmunds and Mr. Blobby were big stars. Usually though, as long as the next person along’s not peeing or trimming their toe-nails into the trough, I’m happy enough. Tv dramas alone (apart from Morse) have certainly never been better and The Office was genius.
Like most of us, I lovey/love/hate pop culture, and in about these proportions: 2:1. But liking it or not was not what made me stop watching. The things that did were pretty simple.
1. I don’t want my kids to see me watching it for hours on end. I limit my girls’ telly-watching to 15 minutes a day each, while the other one’s having a bath. For kids today, certainly in the US, it’s not like when I grew up and tv shows were part of a common shared culture that we 30-somethings like to reminisce about on late pupil-dilated nights, (Ooooh, (flapping) remember The Flumps? And Mr. Ben? and Bagpuss? Aaaaaaw) so I don’t think they’re really missing out on any bonding thing with their peers who’re all watching different channels anyway.
Point is, I can’t very well sit there goggling the box myself without looking like a rank hypocrite to them. Children begin to grow up as soon as they realize their parents are fallible. They’ll find out my failings soon enough - but I don’t want to make it too easy for them. I want a few more years of being an all-seeing, all-powerful mammy.
2. A fear of time passing me by. The last thing I watched with any regularity was Deadwood, a year or so back. Since then I watch the news, The odd Daily Show with John Stewart and on Friday nights I watch Real Time with Bill Maher and that’s it. It’s not that I think I’m “above” tv - not at all. I’m a child of the 80s, I freakin’ loved it. I watched 3 series of The Apprentice, for Trump’s sake, and Project Runway and Changing Rooms and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
But television’s a costly lover and it’ll eat up your life. In front of the telly, before I know it a whole night’s gone and I’ve done nothing. I’ve spent a whole bunch of time (yes time can come in bunches, doubters. It’s the Bunch Principle of Space and Time Theory. Developed by a Ms. Brady. Of immense importance to grapes) to see the 2 things i wanted to see, between which it was hardly worth getting up and doing anything else, and I’m annoyed with myself at having frittered away time like that.
It is though, much easier to give up telly if you’re an expat in the US. You have no real loyalty to any shows or channels. The constant adverts with most everything except HBO means the whole thing’s irritating anyway. But if Eastenders was still on BBC America I’d be watching that. (I signed the online petition to keep it on!) If I was still living at home, no doubt I’d still be watching Countdown, The Simpsons, a sitcom or two, one gritty police drama or another and the rest, and thoroughly enjoying them all. I’d also be reading less and blogging less and the older I get, the more time I want to spend on these two things; the more they trump telly.
This isn’t an article of faith for me: telly bad! Sam no likey telly! It’s just a new habit of watching less rather than more. I watch the odd documentary and I watch films, but these days I purposely avoid any series, reality, drama, comedy, whatever, unless something is recommended to me. Medbh says the Wire’s brilliant and I watched an episode and loved it so now I want to see them all. Curb Your Enthusiasm is great but I’m not going to rearrange my schedule to watch it.
And honestly, I don’t miss it. Instead I spend about half the evening pootling with the pooter and the other half reading. Both are participatory hobbies, demanding something of you more than just telly-watching does and at the end of the night when I’m brushing my teeth, I feel a bit more satisfied; I don’t feel as if I’ve lost an evening. I also like to re-read things but, in the past, it’s always been a luxury: who’s got time for that? Me now! A bit more anyway since I turned the tv off and keeping it off became a habit.
And that’s it. And I really recommend it. Stuff gets done.
HOWEVER…
The internet was out last week for a day or so and I felt like I’d been cut loose from the world. That can’t be right, right?
Still a slave to new media, I.
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:50 am
Sam, you nailed the snobs who like to hold something over your head for liking the odd program. I watch so many people sneer at “the masses” who watch American Idol or something. That crap isn’t my cup of tea, but I can see the appeal.
I get very little of it apart from Thursday night NBC fare and the odd movie I sneak in for a blog review. The pups don’t need to see the tv room, they’d only destroy the couch.
You’re also wise to keep the girls away as long as you can.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Well, you like what you like. Perhaps you’ve just grown out of TV for the time being and will grow into it later. Do they show Laurel and Hardy films in the US? They’re very popular with my tribe.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:22 pm
I was going to leave a long comment, but the second episode of Battlestar Galactica is on the telly in a minute.
April 23rd, 2008 at 12:44 pm
medbh, the girls get tv when they’re sick and for about a day afterwards they’re whining for more. They would sit there drooling in front of it for hours if i let them and so it goes off. They don’t need it. Their brains are developing and the kids stuff on telly is, to me at least, either too nauseatingly saccharine or just too crap.
Nanas, I used to rush home between lectures to watch Home and Away at lunchtime. When I add up all these half hours and the half hours spent walking to our flat and back, the total time spent is horrendous. And I can hardly remember a thing about that show now.
Bock, I know someone to whom, if you said that, they’d muse “Hmmm, yes, yes, but of course, I much preferred Olivier in the original stage production.”
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Sam, go check out my post
http://www.brianf.us/2008/04/18/just-a-quickie/
There is a web site all about what White People Like and not watching TV is pretty much near the top of the list.
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:32 pm
good for you, sugar! your girls aren’t missing anything and probably having more fun playing and DOING things. xox
April 24th, 2008 at 4:23 am
Yes, I do be despairing ’bout the telly. The more there is of it, it seems the less there is to watch on it. Basically it’s become a vector for selling us things. Audiovisual junk mail I call it, and like yourself I find myself watching less of it.
Films, news, some current affairs. Female Drummlets seem to hugely enjoy (in an ironical way, I thiiink) the pulp that is AMERRRRICAAAA’S NEXXXXXT TAWWWWWP MAWWWWWWDEL!!
I’ve the radio going all the time and the interwerb is a means of two-way mass communication which funnily enough, in a small society, telly came close to being at one time.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:40 am
We don’t have Satelite and until this area switches to digital, we can’t get Freeview, or even channel 5 for that matter. So, only 4 channels for us, which is great. I ignore ITV completely except for Dexter, which is superb. BBC 1 I can’t even be bothered watching the news - life’s much less stressful when you stop hearing about how the world is going to end every day. Gok Wan on How to Look Good Naked counts for out C4 viewing, which means the handful of programmes we do usually watch are on BBC 2. Expecially since the new series of HEROES starts tomorrow night.
However, it is as you say, the Internet is my new master and I’m an absolute slave to it.
Even worse since I found I could play scrabble, chess and othello on Facebook with other bloggers from around the world.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:08 am
You’re not alone, dear. I don’t watch much TV since I started getting the news from the internet and I don’t have cable because I don’t want my kids to get mesmerized by one billion channels or something.
Cheers.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I watch precisely one hour of telly a night to unwind my brain, and that’s either the Wire, or Dexter or Boston Legal- which makes me laugh out loud. That’s it, I used to adore telly. Now I find it daft and dull. But sans internet and like you I’d be feeling the colly wobbles.
April 24th, 2008 at 8:41 am
Keep the dammed things out, we lost the battle and it looks like I?m the only lolly gagger on the interweb, the only lazy malingerer, the only parent of children who watch too much TV (the youngest told me recently that it was his favourite thing, Ben 10 is excellent Dad) There are three shameful TVs on the go in our gaff, her?s indoor?s room, the play room and the sun room have the dammed things as well but I won the battle for upstairs. And we?re scattered, we?re not nuclear bonding, we?re also not kicking the shit out of each other over channels. It?s a double edged sword Sam, the dammed TV. Sometimes I?m so knackered it?s the easiest thing for me, and tonight it?s United versus Barca and this coming weekend, Munster play Saracens and this is great sport only available on TV. Oh God I?m doomed.
April 24th, 2008 at 9:41 am
I spent the first number of primary school years being a very good listener, while many of the playground- 8th of an acre under cement- recounted the last nights telly. I grew up in an area, a pocket, where the electric had yet to connect. I remember the feeling of disconnect, deprivation and profound pissed-offedness at hearing zee rather than zed. No Bob, Bert & Ernie to let me know that difference was a good thing. No Big Bird, an LSD inspired creation if there ever was one. At least not while it would do any good.
Did it do any harm, how can anyone tell. ’tis not as if there is a double blind option when growing up or bringing up kids. All you can do is arm them.
To-day, the one objection I have with the telly is that there is the expectation that you are the spectator having no ‘put in the issue. Morse exercised the mind as can the Carry On films can for the little ones. They pick up on all the bold words. I know it sounds crazy, and it can really play with your mind when you walk in and find kids rolling on the floor, laughing at Sid James.
But there are few things as sad as seeing a little Huckleberry Finn shifting on its backside trying to generate something anything from a TV programme.
Sean the Sheep, is goodish, a bloody sight better than Farthing Wood where you wish the gray one eyed fox would hammer the bejasus out of the hero.
April 24th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Don’t have a TV any longer as you know, Sam. But I do watch the racing & GAA in the pub and the kids channels when I’m being minded by my two little buddies. Bottom line: I don’t have one, but still watch it. Yet, I tell folks I don’t.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
When I gave it up in 1998 I actually gave up watching it - absolutely for that first year - just to push me into a place I wanted to be. Not watching it at all was tricky - it meant being anti-social, it meant going to the pub with the lads for the game or with workmates for lunch, and sitting facing the opposite direction. Once during that year - in the company of an Uncle in England I didn’t have the heart to explain what I was doing - did I actually look momentarily at a television screen, but I blurred my vision so that I saw nothing.
And what was I doing? I didn’t like that I knew who so many people who were just celebrities for being celebrities were. I wanted to know what it would be like not knowing. And I got so many wonderful things out of it - I found out who were great storytellers as they told me what was happening in Coronation Street or EastEnders (easy to visualise at first but trickier as new characters came in). And new comedy series were brilliant having them described and acted out blow by blow - having a friend impersonate John Sessions impersonating other people was priceless, and I’ll always treasure my Dad acting out chimpanzees and animals in order to describe nature documentaries to me.
Once past that 1st year I relaxed the ban to include watching stuff in other people’s homes if they so wished, but I still wouldn’t own one myself. Funnily enough whenever you admitted that you weren’t watching lots of people took it as a personal assault on their behaviour and tried to convince you of all the good stuff that was on. I always agreed and said that was the problem - there was too much good telelvision.
Production values are so much better these days that there really is amazing quality out there that simply wasn’t there 20 years ago - but it’s spread all over the place now, in a million different places and so often served up in a slimy butter of consumerist tacky sludge.
April 24th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
American TV is rubbish isn’t it. Apart from Frazier, Friends and The Simpsons, Third Rock from the Sun, and re-runs of NYPD Blue, Rowan and Martin, I Love Lucy, Bonanza, The High Chaparral, The Virginian, Gunsmoke, Star Trek, Colombo, Kojak, Starsky & Hutch, Miami Vice, Space Patrol, Bewitched, and Mr Ed.
Those who live in UK can have the best of both worlds of course by watching only BBC and C4, and turning their noses up at ITV. I wouldn’t deprive the kids of telly too much, they’ll be treated as Martians when they go to school and will have nothing to talk to the others about.
I don’t watch much TV either due to the lack of C4 and the hour’s time difference, but I do need my daily fix. No Eastenders? How uncivilized.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Wow, I’m impressed with all of those shows Daphne just listed — the stuff of my youth!
We have a t.v., but it is not connected. We just get the DVDs out at the library and watch them instead if there’s anything we hear is good. Sneaky, but it works for us. Life’s too short, and there are BOOKS to be read!
April 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Wow, I’m impressed with all of those shows Daphne just listed — the stuff of my youth!
We have a t.v., but it is not connected. We just get the DVDs out at the library and watch them instead if there’s anything we hear is good. Sneaky, but it works for us. Life’s too short, and there are BOOKS to be read! Plus, the kids can’t be trusted not to sit around watching it all day long…
April 24th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Wow, I’m impressed with all of those shows Daphne just listed — the stuff of my youth!
We have a t.v., but it is not connected. We just get the DVDs out at the library and watch them instead if there’s anything we hear is good. Sneaky, but it works for us. Life’s too short, and there are BOOKS to be read! Plus, the kids can’t be trusted not to sit around watching it all day long….
April 24th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Telly’s dead……Savalas that is……
April 24th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
brianf, funny stuff!
Savannah, if they could take it or leave it , it would be better, but they get mesmerised and slack-jawed and then crave more and more.
Conan, that’s the difference nowadays. Hardly anyone is watching the same “culturally-binding” media any more. All media is becoming niche to correspond to personal interests. Nothing wrong with that if we all get the news i suppose, but it means the water-cooler chatty aspect of tv has gone too.
Kim, still only 4 channels for the Western Isles too without the satelite.
Rand. I spent way too much of my youth watching telly and my folks weren’t illiberal about it. The brain goes into a beta (?) state or something - can’t remember the name - which is a kind of zoning out. Brain activity actually decreases to a level below even sitting quietly not doing anything.
fmc, me too, dull and daft and not that rewarding.
Sniffle - moderation’s fine, I’m no telly nazi. I wouldn’t dream of forbidding it outright. The point of the post was just to say I’ve curtailed it lately and I feel better for it.
Vince, Carry On - ha! Life would be a greyer thing indeed without the Carry-on films. Some kids programmes are fine, terrific even, but it’s like a drug for my kids, they keep wanting more and more and their drooling expressions as they watch Dora is alarming.
Primal, you definitely get more done in a day if you’re out of the telly habit. The radio and internet are better for news and information and although I know I’m sure I’m missing some good dramas, lately I’ve become antsy after more than an hour in front of the box.
Eolai, it’s interesting to hear that what you got out of telly was more other people’s relation of it to you. I don’t think I have the inclination to turn it off for good. Some things are too good to be missed, but spending all this time on the internet means I pick up on what the best stuff is without spending hours trawling through all the crap!
Daphne, I think you misunderstand me toots. I’m the first to say American sitcoms are the best, no question. TV at my old rate of consumption though was just too consuming especially of time. This post wasn’t about dissing telly. It’s more about the benefits I’ve seen in terms of time and satisfaction since reducing how much i watch. I used to watch loads. As far as the kids go I am not draconian about it. They’re still young enough to not even notice the tv’s not on during the day. I’m not worried about them being ostracised socially. They see all the same movies as their friends. I just don’t want them sitting in front of tv for hours on end watching anything that happens to come on. Have you seen some of the precious, saccharine, princessy shows out there for girls?
Manuel, ho! Telly’s dead…long live the Youtube!!
April 24th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Was on a flight today with tv in the seats and felt unplugged without the computer. Funny that.
“Television?s a costly lover” - I may steal that some time. Maybe to get my kids to turn off Dora. Then I could say, “Oh? You don’t understand that? Well maybe you would if you turned off Dora!”
April 24th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
Mary, I’m not sure why my spam filter keeps catching you. Think I might have sorted it this time though. It’s nothing personal, I promise.
Mom101, Dora’s one of the ones i can’t stand with her stupid backpack and her nauseating sweetness. I’m always up for Swiper - that bandit fox thing needs a break.
April 25th, 2008 at 3:48 am
Oh bugger bugger and thrice bugger! I just left my comment for a second to google and its gone!
You and Zinnia Cyclamen are the only two of my friends I believe when you say little or (in Zinn’s case) no TV. I’m watching less because its rubbish on the whole except our ‘Apprentice ‘ - I love Alan Sugar - he makes me laugh - and stuff like ‘Cranford’ - anything with Eileen Atkins. Yay she has a BAFTA at last.
Mostly TV is a background whilst I do the cross word and nip upstairs to see what’s on my puter.
It’’s a bit like that old TWTWTW sketch. I look up to Zinnia who watches nowt but I look down on the haidresser who - when she gets home watches every soap in turn. I only watch Enders , Corrie and Neighbours ‘cos the latter saw me through a barren period when I left friends, home etc etc.
Oh the Google was to look up the latest of the Fox dynasty - you see I’ve forgotten his name already but he’s James Fox’s son - odd looking, but grows on you, in ‘Lewis’.
April 25th, 2008 at 8:04 am
My tv broke last week and I was cold turkey the first few days. It’s still not fixed! I’m not sure I could live without no tv and no internet though!
April 25th, 2008 at 8:05 am
“without no tv and no internet” - Damn double negatives!
April 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
people who make you take your shoes off in the house should have their toe nails stepped on. just an opinion.
i love tv…but i’m a snob about what i watch and when. i go on and on and on about arrested development (sigh), the daily show, 30 rock, etc…but i’d never say no to a happy hour to make it home in time for any of them, you know? so i think my priorities are nice and straight.
April 25th, 2008 at 5:01 pm
If you don’t watch telly, you’ll never see Dexter or Battlestar Galactica (reimagined). It would be a great pity if you missed either of these terrific pieces of writing.
April 25th, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Pat, if I could regain the time somehow, I’d watch all sorts on tv. TW3’s a classic. I know the sketch you mean with the two Ronnies and John Cleese. I had a crush on either James or Edward Fox when I was wee. Both probably. Off to google the fox pup.
Kara, exactly. It was only really when I hit 30ish that I started getting antsy about how much time I spent with the tv. In my early 20s I watched masses, but never enough to lure me home if I was out for a post-lecture pint or 5.
Bock, that’s the theory though, if I don’t know about them I won’t miss them. I know I’m missing loads of good stuff but the good stuff I watched 5 years ago I can hardly remember now adn I wonder why I spent my time like that. I really am pretty paranoid about time getting away from me.
April 25th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Quickroute, hallo - sorry, you got lost in me moderation list there for a bit. Wordpress is playing silly buggers with me these days.
April 27th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
don’t forget fingermouse sami…or was it fingerbob?…i never can remember…oh oh and pigeon street too
May 1st, 2008 at 7:03 am
But… if you think telly’s all right and you’re not snooty about it… why won’t you let your kids watch it? You don’t have to be super-mum all the time you know… and your kids don’t have to be super-kids. Not every minute of their day has to be educational and healthy… sometimes they should get to slob out, too. And then everyone gets to have a rest. Bargain!
May 1st, 2008 at 9:20 am
wee Niaff - fingermouse. i think…now I have to go and google it. I watched pigeon street on YouTube the other week!
Clare, growing minds. They’re different from adult minds. The girls don;t fill their days with “educationally appropriate play” - nothing like that. I’m not “that” parent at all. They’re both day-dreamers though and I just think that’s a better sort of slobbing out for them than telly. They’re also pretty good at occupying themselves and don’t get bored easily, which for me, is a better payoff than having them whine for telly all day. Which they would do. It actually workds out more restful for me too to keep the thing turned off.
October 8th, 2008 at 4:54 am
[...] Telly ; A post about how Sam has forsaken Telly for the new media… pretty much like meself. I commend you Sam on your resolution and clean break from the time-wasting slave box that is TV and your efforts to wean the ickle ones from its grasp. That’s not easy. I sympathise a lot. [...]