No TV. No Cry.

Today’s blog was inspired by a visit this very afternoontide from two youngish men from Sky who honestly looked more like Jehovah’s Witnesses than guys trying to sell me satellite TV. First I pointed out my Money Saving Expert “No Cold Callers – Don’t Incur Our Wrath By Knocking” signs on my door and window
(http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/no-more-junk), which the talking one claimed were faded and he didn't see, cheeky bleached blond sod. Then I told him that I don’t have broadcast TV via an aerial, digibox, satellite, cable or wire coathanger, which flummoxed him. He then tried to sell me phone or broadband and I bid him a polite farewell. And slammed the door in his orange face.
It did occur to me that I should also have told him that, even if I was in the market for wall-to-wall TV, it wouldn’t be from a bunch of scuzzy phone-tapping, paying-police-for-info, distressing families of murdered children, downright disrespectful and disgraceful to the Liverpool fans who died at Hillsborough and their families, lying, Tony Blair loving, having their children baptised “where Jesus was baptised”, oleaginous, dirty CNUTS!
Anyway, back on message. What I wanted to write about was yes, I don’t have a TV. Well, that’s not actually true because I have a smallish rectangular monitor that we as a family watch DVDS and videos on (yes, dear reader, we still have a video player) and that my dear darlings play Assassins Creed, Lego Harry Potter Years 1-to-bloody-4 and Halo via the Xbox360 on. And I do have a decent sized computer monitor (which we got for £20 from the British Heart Foundation electrical shop in Partick recently when our old one went kaput) that I do watch iPlayer, 4od and occasionally (very, very occasionally) ITV Player on (other download sites are available – and yes, I do use them too). But that is it. No inane smug and patronising breakfast TV. None of the modern day freaks-and-sideshow of Jeremy Vile. No X-cruciating Factor and its no talent pub singers, no Britain Has No Discernible Talent but aren’t the disableds and damaged cute, no Strictly It’s Not Only Your Feet That Are On The Skids. And very few adverts – if I see any, I am strangely drawn to them like a chimp to a butterfly – I have no idea what they are trying to sell now. Except for cars. Lots and lots and lots of cars. We are in a downward spiralling depression where we are going to have to end up eating lots and lots of home-grown tomatoes (I do have loads – give me a call if you want some. Seriously.) and the advertising agencies want you (not me) to buy a F*CKING NEW CAR! Sheesh.
Anywaysay (I go off on tangents – stay with me, you’ll get used to it) about 3 years ago we were like a lot of you, complaining that there was nothing but hours and hours of utter piss and drivel on our 4 channels (We didn’t have Satan’s Sky then and we never had, except for a brief period when we lived in the high flats and we got BSB for free because they used the top of the flats as transmitters and I loved Jupiter Moon until it became BskyB and they cancelled Jupiter Moon sadface which I loved as it was a sci-fi soap opera and shut off the signal after a wee while. And we couldn’t get Five because it was blocked by a Scottish Power pylon and none of our darling neighbours told us they would move the aerial for free.). So we looked at what we did watch, which was very little and we were mostly watching DVDs. We kept track of it and worked out that we were paying a licence fee and not actually using it. After doing a bit of research, we unplugged the aerials, covered them over with blank panels, wrote to the BBC Licensing people and told them we had done this. They gave us a refund then sent round 2 nice men who were very stunned when I opened the door to them with a smile and gladly showed them my blanked-out aerial inlets and they left satisfied with a promise to return in a couple of years.
And how happy we have been. We watch what we like, when we like. We read loads. We take the dog out at least 3 times a day (weather permitting although she went out today twice in that wind and rain, once in her coat and was seriously unchuffed until she met her boyfriend Winchester who is the only dog she allows to sniff her bum). We have friends over a couple of times a week for chats and food and sitting round the fire outside on the pa-tee-Yo. We listen to the wireless – Radio 4 or 6Music mainly with the odd bit of Janice Forsyth and Tom Morton (other radio presenters are available but are frankly mostly bawbags) and Radio 5 Live in the wee sma’ hours if I can’t sleep unless it’s THE BLOODY TENNIS!!!! I knit (and proper knitting too, not just the bobbly knitting but real knitting like hats and fingerless mittens). And I write.

So what you may ask, dear reader (wake up and stop looking at other people’s pussies for minute) what is the purpose of this diatribe and frankly insane rambling? Well, I am setting you a challenge. Especially if you are one of my lovely Twitterpals or Facebonkies who Tweet or update your status about how droll The Apprentice/ The Great British Jerk-Off/ Big Z-List Celeb (delete as appropriate) is. Here it is –

1) Buy yourself a copy of next week’s Radio Times, which is out tomorrow (not the one with Dominic West on the cover as I will have more than likely licked it, especially if you buy it in the ASDA in the Parkhead Forge) or download it from www.radiotimes.com . Not another listings mag or the TV pages from the paper. You’ll see why in a minute. And get yourself a highlighter pen.
2) Highlight (with your brand spanking new highlighter pen that you should have bought with your copy of the Radio Times – keep up!) the TV programmes and/ or films that YOU WOULD LIKE TO WATCH. Not the ones you have on for background or company or habit. Make sure you have at least one good film and one documentary (and by that I mean a proper one like Horizon or Panorama and not Look At This Fat Freakish F*ck on Five). You are allowed one soap opera episode (and if you say “But ah cannae live withoot ma stories”, then let’s see how you live without oxygen because you obviously did at some point to enjoy that pap instead of meeting your real friends for a shandy down the boozer. Note; no offence to any of you reading this who have actually ever been starved of oxygen.)
3) Now turn to the Radio section (I bet you never knew it had a radio section, did you?). Have a good look at that and find one thing – one thing – that interests you and highlight that (with your other highlighter pen that you bought because it was “Buy 2 for £1" and you like a wee bargain). Try Janice Forsyth’s Show on A Saturday on BBC Radio Scotland (try saying that with your teeth in squinty). Or Danny Baker on Radio 5 Live. Or The News Quiz with Sandi Toksvig on Radio 4 on a Friday at 6.30pm. Or the bloody Archers if you need a soap fix. Of course, you can go mad and pick 2. Or 3. Or whatever. Stay with me.
4) Now here’s the killer – HAVE ONE NIGHT WHERE YOU DON’T WATCH ANY TV AT ALL (Who’s that screaming in terror at the back? Nurse, the hypodermic!) Go to the library (while you still can before Dishface Dave sells them off to his mates to re-open as poorhouses, ‘cos that’s what’s gonna happen) and get a book or two. And read it. Or listen to some music. Have some mates round for some food and a few wee voddies. Go round a visit your mates. Or your old mum. Or your old dad. Bake some bread or some cupcakes. Talk to your kids. Build that Airfix model of the Vital Spark you’ve had since your were a mite. Just don’t put on the gogglebox.
5) Let me know how you get on – you might surprise yourself.

If you struggle or recoil in horror at my suggestion, fair enough. This is a blog, not The Prime Directive. But you might surprise yourself.
So what have I watched this week? Stay tuned for my TV and DVD recommendations tomorrow. Til then, toodle pip and thanks for reading this far xxx