What I've learned this week: The TV is your enemy...

Last year, we bought a Smart TV.  It was part of our ongoing efforts to try to update and improve our house.  And, since the Covid-19 outbreak, we are SO glad we did, as without it we’d now be forced to talk to each other and play card games, like we used to during times of national crisis. 

           It's main effect has been to make us recognise the sheer dreadfulness of mainstream TV. We watch Only Connect and University Challenge on Mondays, and flit in and out of Masterchef (trying to cut out the bits where Greg Wallace chuckles with inappropriate heartiness before giving a faux cockernee ‘THAT…is…DEEvine…, THAT is!’, and the shots of John Torode munching food like a cow chewing cud). Occasionally there's a good film on which hasn’t been repeated six times a day for the past three months. Talking Pictures is the only channel I can stand, if I’m honest, and that’s only because I love black-and-white British melodramas starring John Mills, Dirk Bogarde and any child actor you care to mention.  If they showed Bette Davis films, and film noir starring Dana Andrews, I’d watch nothing else. 

               I like cookery shows, because I like food and cooking, but I often find the presenters unbearable. Jamie Oliver, for example, cooks fab grub but his ‘bish bash bosh, guys, whazz it all up in a blender, happy days’ spiel leaves me wanting to hit him with a frying pan.

               One of the programmes I particularly enjoy is Gogglebox, which is a surreal experience – I am being entertained by watching people watching TV programmes, most of which I’ve never seen.  Twenty years ago, I’d never have guessed that watching people watching stuff could be so much more interesting and funny than watching the actual programmes they’re watching. Maybe in the future we’ll watch families watching Gogglebox?

           Different channels do their own specific brand of awfulness, I’ve noticed.  BBC1 is just unwatchable.  Eastenders alone puts me into a coma. BBC2 ties with BBC4 as being my second favourite after Talking Pictures. ITV is full of drama serials which people assure me are well worth watching but the adverts drive me up the wall, and I miss episodes because they’re always changing the broadcasting times.  Channel Four is wall-to-wall public information-type documentaries about the corona virus which leave you gibbering in a corner  - How to Disinfect Your Garden Fence, or Ten Deadly Microorganisms You Didn't Realise Were Lurking In Your Shoe-rack, or Cats: Deadlier than Ebola!... And there are adverts there too!  Channel Five is back-to-back freakshow-TV:  My Nazi Trans Mother, or Cockapoos: The Hideous Facts Your Vet Didn’t Tell You, or Britain’s Top Ten Favourite Serial Killers In Their Speedos.

           So the smart TV has been a godsend during lockdown.  I took out a subscription to Amazon Prime, which I think is great. I’ve watched entire boxsets of several long series since we bought the TV, and I’m constantly finding new things to enjoy. We’ve just got into Tales From The Loop.  Because I’m slow on the uptake, I didn’t realise you could watch stuff like iPlayer, All Four and You Tube for free, so I’m just beginning to discover their delights.  On iPlayer and All Four, I can watch stuff I actually like when I want to (Number 9, Stewart Lee, University Challenge – and the Channel 4 series about RSPCA training, Animal Rescue School,  which was filmed during the year my niece undertook the course so she pops up in the background every so often). And the National Theatre, Globe, Royal Opera House, etc are streaming stage productions into our living rooms now, which means I’m experiencing more culture than I did before I went into self-isolation!

            When the lockdown began, I honestly expected I would get fitter and would do loads of writing.  I intended to eat less – empty supermarket shelves suggested food might be in short supply so in the first week of self-isolation we cut down from two to one slices of toast in the morning, had just a bowl of homemade soup for lunch, and ensured we had modest portions of an evening.  But once we realised the supermarkets had restocked their shelves, and our fridge, freezer and cupboards were overflowing with food, we quickly started slipping into bad eating habits.  When you’re bored, you find yourself thinking obsessively about that box of Jaffa Cakes you put in the drawer at the bottom of the bookcase to save for when you were really fed-up, or the pack of hot cross buns you stashed in the freezer for a rainy day.  Yes, you do – admit it! Before you know it, you're asking your partner to throw another sausage on your porridge and melt some cheese on your fruit cocktail because 'it will only go off and have to be thrown out'!

           I also anticipated going for local daily walks and then doing my daily yoga workout (which I haven’t done for about two years!) and an exercise routine I’d found online.  In the first week, I managed to hurt my neck doing supposedly moderate stretching exercises aimed at people with chronic pain caused by conditions like fibromyalgia, and this triggered two days of non-stop migraine-type headaches that left me dizzy and nauseous, with visual disturbances, convinced I had a brain tumour. Since then, these have returned twice but for a shorter duration, but they put me off the yoga and stretching exercises.  I have been for a few walks, but mostly my exercise has been doing modest amounts of housework and lots of typing!  And of course dragging my flabby body to and from the sofa and the table where my laptop is set up uses up calories. 

           If I continue like this, by the time we get permission to go back to normal life I’m going to be one of those stupendously fat people who can’t get out of their houses without having the walls removed, who lose the TV remote in their rolls of flab, and who can't stay awake for longer than half an hour at a stretch.

           But I’ll be an expert on US box-set drama serials.