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57 Channels an' nothin' on
by Tom Southam | 16/02/09
I did something I haven’t done for a long time yesterday and skived a day off work. I just looked once out the window, it wasn’t bad weather, I looked again and I had a little notion inside that just said, “Don’t go out. Stay in. Sit on the couch. Drink more coffee. Spend two hours on Wikipedia. Watch more T.V.”
Being a fairly self-motivated individual I find that when I start to even have the slightest notion to do this, my body – or mind, one without the other is a sad prospect, is probably sagely telling me something. So I indulge this notion. Shelve ideas of putting a chamois anywhere near my butt and slip gently back into the Chesterfield.
It almost feels like a day off school, after you have convinced your parents you really are in no condition to learn and they go off to work, you are left with a warm self satisfied feeling that stretches out across the day. Like Homer when he drops Church for his own religion, a guilty pleasure indeed.
The funny thing is, in the twelve or so years since I last stayed home from school, four things have stayed almost exactly the same. I say four things; it’s really one thing through four different channels. Daytime television; or more specifically, mid-morning daytime television. Designed to start making kids, at around 11.30, start wondering what their mates at school are up to, or the non training bike rider to start looking out the window thinking ‘there really is no excuse’ and ‘its getting quite sunny actually’.
Honestly, I, not being a big TV person and having been all over the place doing all sorts of different things haven’t sat down and switched on a TV at 11.34 for such a long time and yet, when I did, I was greeted by the full flood of emotions that had lain so dormant for so long. It’s like a spreading panic, the initial excitement of having a whole day lazing on the couch starts to recede and instead the day looks like a long grim slog, alone and painfully reminded how desperate TV producers must be to really teach the unemployed a lesson.
Not only is it drivel, it’s the same drivel.
BBC1; A prat standing in a field somewhere in Scotland, probably on a grey windy day, wearing a parker jacket, saying something educational about the windmills, wind turbines or the abandoned coal mine behind him.
Next.
BBC2; Two people, talking very seriously in a bluey grey studio with occasional library shots of the high street, or a graph. Using terms even the Channel 4 news team would struggle with.
Next.
ITV; Cut to a soft focus lens in an orangey flowery warm studio somewhere on some docks. A concerned middle aged woman is leaning forward making a very sincere point about something or some group. The couple that present the show agree because the woman looks on sympathetically and the man just looks a little outraged in a very mild-mannered way.
Next.
Channel 4; a grainy camcorder filmed documentary about disaffected poor people. We can tell they are poor because there are eight of them sat around a tiny table and they are eating baked beans, poor people always eat baked beans when the documentary cameras come out. The kids are all shouting at each other around the table, and maybe if I watch long enough, they will cut to one of them, spotty and greasy doing a self filmed diary piece talking in whispers about their mum and or dad and how they are affected by Josie who had a tantrum about not getting her beans.
Next. Next. Next. You see it’s not just bad; it’s a formula of bad that has existed seemingly forever. I know what you are thinking; there are other channels now, many many more thousands of channels. But really what alternative are they? Endless Chris Brown videos, or a one hour loop of Sky News eight times, or if you’re really committed, thousands of American sitcoms not quite good enough for prime-time slots.
No, the fact of the matter is, no matter how good the rush is to start with, you really shouldn’t sit around watching TV all day. It will hurt you a lot more than it will hurt them. Your teachers, your bosses, all safe in the knowledge that productivity won’t be down for long, as no one can subject themselves to that kind of rubbish for many mornings running. I for one am desperate to get back to my day job, or at least switch the damn TV off until it’s time for Countdown, when business hours are well and truly over for me and I can enjoy my ‘About a Boy’ style, après midi.
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