IT’S a bit late now, but I’m thinking that I really should have given up TV for Lent.
It can take a while to realise you have a serious addiction problem. Like most people I fool myself that I have no vices.
I can take or leave most things. Have never smoked a cigarette, never mind tried an illegal substance. Am happy to only have a couple of drinks on a night out to avoid a hangover. There’s no secret stash of chocolate in my undies drawer. I genuinely don’t see the point in betting more than a fiver and even then I’m going to go each way and it’ll be the Grand National.
But you have to admit you have a problem when you realise you’re fitting your entire life around an external entity.
One of the first signs was when I realised our YouView box was down to just two per cent memory.
And it’s not because I’m too busy with various hobbies to sit in front of the TV. That’s WITH me sitting in front of the TV.
I am watching so much TV that I don’t have time to watch TV, so I’m taping it, but I’m too busy watching TV to get round to watching it.
That, my friends, is a TV problem.
But it gets worse.
I’m leaving the country for four evenings (well also five days, but realistically evenings are when I’m doing my TV watching – when I stop going to work because I have to watch TV it’s time for one of you to stage an intervention.)
That should be a cause of great joy and the anticipation of much relaxation. Instead I’m lying awake at night wondering where I’ll find the digibox capacity to record all the TV I’m going to miss. And then the time to watch it when I get back, especially considering there’ll be a fresh batch of TV to watch when I get back. And there’s already the existing backlog…
But it gets worse. I think I’m watching so much TV that it’s hard to tell what is happening on screen and what is happening Chez FatArch.
You see I’m off to Iceland (No, not the supermarket, why does everyone think I mean the supermarket?) Home of the Northern Lights, the Blue Lagoon, the Golden Circle. And a new BBC4 Scandi-noir offering called `Trapped’. Everyone gets stuck in a blizzard.
So obviously I’m packing a foldaway snow shovel and lots of non-perishable snacks.
And the apple doesn’t fall far from the crazy tree.
“I can’t believe you’re going to Iceland,” my mother exclaimed during an ad break on a rare night when we were both watching ITV.
“All those people are trapped in the snow. Maybe you won’t be able to get home.”
I think it has gone past the `weaning off’ stage. We’re probably looking at cold turkey and Lent would have been the perfect time to do it.
And when I say cold turkey, I’m coming to the sad conclusion that I’d have to include radio as well.
It was when the pressing needs of my household tore me away from the siren call of the TV and I was busying around listening to `The Archers’ omnibus last Sunday on Radio Four that this became clear.
Rex (I know, I know) was looking for a cheap hen house when someone mentioned that Bert was a decent joiner.
`Bert,’ I thought, cheering up immediately. `I could see if he can fix our wooden bath surround.’ It’s been hanging off for six months now.
It took an embarrassing amount of time for me to realise: HE’S A FICTIONAL CHARACTER.
Yes, drastic measures are going to have to be made to ensure that my home does not completely crumble around me as I remain glued to the sofa in front of the TV and radio.
I think I can trace the tipping over from casual watcher to complete addict to the long winter nights with a vampire newborn baby who was awake all night. Too tired to read and confined to barracks, TV became a blessed escape.
Then later came the cold realisation that our fine dining and dancing days (and even communal nocturnal dog walks) were behind us. TV took up the slack.
It’s slowly dawning on us that it doesn’t take two to listen out for a monitor and one of us is free to leave the house of an evening.
But then there’s all that TV to watch…
b.archer@irishnews.com
@BimpeIN
