I,ve often wondered how it would feel to anonymously post a few random thoughts for anyone to read so this seems as good a way as any to do it.Do they get read? Does it matter? Is the very act of writing it down in some way helpful? There appears to me to be one way of finding out.So, to that end I will write whatever occurs to me as and when I feel the urge. I am a slow typist so the thoughts may be slow to appear or may take time to be completed.Any road , here goes;
I was talking to a "friend" not long back when she said something that pissed me off a bit but at the time I was too polite to pull her up on it. I was asking her if she'd watched "Dalziel and Pascoe" the night before on telly. Now granted it's not the most intellectually stimulating cultural experience she'd have enjoyed all year but Warren Clarke does have a certain gruff charm about him but thats bye the bye.
Like a lot of middle-class people when confronted with the mention of the beastly idiot box she donned quite a patronising smirk with a hint of distaste thrown in and uttered the classic line favoured by Dinner Party Goers the length and breadth of the Home Counties ( and their brethren of no specific accent in well-heeled areas of cities all over the land),
" oh no, we don't own a television"
Now i just gave an "oh" and we carried on talking about something else,but something about her manner got to me and i started thinking later, "what's so clever about cutting yourself off from the most important and influential cultural medium of the century (of all time?).Granted, most of what's on is shite but the same could be said of most films, books, plays, newspapers etc etc but could you imagine her or anyone else of her ilk taking a similar stand on any of those things,
" oh no, we simply don't bother with books,most of them are such rubbish!"
How has it come to pass that ignorance and wilful blindness has come to signify, in some quarters at least, some sort of cultural superiority. I can understand discernment, I mean thats what the off switch and channel changer are for but the wholesale "banning" of it is moronic. Nice to get that off my chest, see you soon.
