DUE to an unexpected period of enforced inactivity over the past three weeks and without sufficient concentration to read, I've spent a lot of time watching television.
Within three days I had turned into the definitive couch potato, with a profound disinclination to move any part of me but my index finger on the remote control.
I only rise from my bed to resume my recumbent posture on the sofa - so cosy, but temptingly soporific.
I keep drifting into a light doze, wakening suddenly to discover I've lost an hour and the plot.
I understand now why in some less satisfactory care homes, staff leave the elderly in front of a burbling television set for hours at a time.
Unlike my tech-savvy friends with their multi-channel contracts and libraries of box sets, mine is a modest Sky package, not updated for five years because I don't watch much, except for news, current affairs, history and the arts ('Get her,' sez you.).
Among things I've never seen are Game of Thrones, The Crown, Line of Duty and The Bodyguard - nor for that matter, any soap opera.
I am an aficionado of the only true soap, The Archers, though Ambridge is in steep moral decline.
I never understood people who spend whole evenings casually flicking channels at random from teatime to bedtime.
Now I'm a one-woman Gogglebox shouting at the people who shout at the telly. As I channel-hop I can feel my IQ descending rapidly into single figures.
I never realised how formulaic daytime television is. Every permutation of cookery, property, garden design, antiques and quiz show fill the schedules and the 'winning audience imperative' has crept into most of them.
"Make it competitive," for amateurs, professionals and celebrities alike.
Endless opportunity for rivalry, personality clashes, unlikely alliances, triumph and disaster, viewer loyalty - and high ratings.
There's nothing like watching heavily perspiring chefs footering with foams and jus and reductions and weeping into their pinnies whether they win or lose.
Personally, I think life is too short to stuff a mushroom.
You would think property programmes might be free of competition. Now architects and designers vie for the privilege of planning from scratch or radical renovation and couples with more money than sense choose their favourite plan.
You may commission an artwork for your lovely home if you're willing to let a couple of artists have a run of the place, hoking in your cupboards, assessing your taste and curling a lip at your sloganised scatter cushions and keepsakes.
Ditto, garden designers - Charlie Dimmock, Alan Titchmarsh's garden Venus of yesteryear is still with us, still unapologetically uncorseted.
Antiques programmes remain favourites. Whether it's an unctuous, nicotine-coloured David 'the Duke' Dickinson or fragrant Fiona Bruce, what the public want to know is, "What's it worth?"
A plethora of quiz shows cater for every intellectual level from idiot to genius.
The dumbest have the most neon lighting, portentous music, noisy audiences and saccharine presenters who could out-smarm the late Hughie Green.
As a current affairs junkie, I've come to the conclusion that news is doing my head in.
If Laura Kuenssberg is fronting the story, you know it ain't happy - though I do wish I knew where she buys her coats.
As for local news, calculate the number of positive features covered in our evening news magazines and contrast with the predictable litany of crime, violence and sectarian tensions that claim the headlines, while we project an attitude of shiny positive for the visitor and the potential investor.
The sterile exercise of 'talks' goes on interminably while the province goes to hell in a handcart and the economy with it. Our 'paper peace' looks more flimsy by the day.
Today is Saturday. My viewing menu from the listings is six hours of football followed by four hours of Eurovision song contest with half an hour between to facilitate the delivery and consumption of pizzas and bargain buckets.
I'm rapidly losing the will to live. D'you know what? I'll shake of my debilitating torpor, drag myself to a vertical position and write the Irish News column.
