TV, or not TV...

..that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous Wheel of Fortune, or to pull out the aerial plug and by opposing end them. (My apologies to Billy S)

We turned our TV off, and unplugged the aerial, in December 2004, and our house has been TV free for 14 months. We took that decision for a number of good reasons, and on the whole it's been really beneficial. We've had much more time each week to be productive/creative, we spend far less time becoming infuriated by banal and patronising programming, we no longer feel ourselves becoming dumber with each passing moment, and we're spared an awful lot of inane marketing.

In fact it's quite an eye opener to see how much of the daily conversation in a workplace and elsewhere revolves around TV programs: it's only when you go cold-turkey, and you therefore can't relate to at least half of the topics being discussed, that you realise how pervasive TV has become in almost everybody's lives. Based on the watercooler conversations, it seems the major 'must see" shows that I completely missed out on were or are "Lost", "Desparate Housewives", "House" and "Dancing With The Stars". People at work tend to think it very strange when you say you don't watch TV - I think to most it's a completely foreign concept - but turning off is a very interesting experiment that you may want to try one day (but for more than one day of course...maybe start with 14).

Well, the whole point of telling you all that was that we decided to pop the telly back on this Wednesday to watch the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. As they're being held here in Melbourne, it seemed vaguely un-Victorian, if not un-Australian, to be completely oblivious to them. So we sat down at 7:30 and flicked the switch. Well, i'm not entirely sure that it was worth breaking our self-imposed TV 'fast' for that particular event: elements of the opening were very good, but many other elements were downright embarassing. I know it's a very subjective thing, but a lot of the imagery in particular was pretty irrelevant and unrepresentative, and the theme (if there was one) seemed pretty patchy and misguided. I think someone tried to make things a bit too arty and clever, but forgot to keep it entertaining. But who am I to judge? Many people said many nice things about it - and some of those people weren't even on the payroll. So perhaps i'm just incapable of appreciating anything too high-brow.

In any case, the TV has stayed on past Wednesday, and we've watched quite a bit of the swimming, cycling, triathlon and gymnastics - which has been infinitely more entertaining than the opening ceremony. I'm not a sports fan by any stretch, but there is something very universally appealing about watching people give their best efforts toward an endeavour, sporting or otherwise. And I admire the self discipline that must have been required - particularly as so many of these guys and girls are just teenagers - so my hat goes off to them (and the Australians have been doing really, really well in the first two days - 25G, 15S, 18B = 56 medals so far).

So while the jury is still out on whether the TV will be switched off again for another year or so, I'm thinking that perhaps it'll stay plugged in for at least the next two weeks!

Matt