flanerie

Prague is lovely

TV-free

I’m sure you’ve all been having sleepless nights wondering whether my dental problems have worked themselves out – rest assured the pain is now all but gone, and in only 2 weeks!

My workload, as ever, is ludicrous, so I’ll use that as my excuse for maintaining my abysmal blogging levels. No bugger comes here any more, but that’s my own fault.

Anyway, onto something else. I am getting rid of the idiot box. That’s right, the telly is being banished. Today, I will put it up for grabs on the very worthy Freecycle site. I’m not one of those people who rail against the tyranny of the TV. It’s true there is an awful lot of rubbish programming (Big Brother, EastEnders, anything on ITV, etc.), but there are many excellent programmes too. Nor am I one of the morons who spout fatuous nonsense about how unjust the TV Licence is. At a little over a tenner a month, it’s pretty damn cheap.

No – my reason for binning the gogglebox is the simple fact that neither I nor Miss Despina have much use for it. It has been switched on about three times in as many months, so there is simply no point paying just to have it gathering dust in the corner of the room.

I am beta testing the BBC iPlayer (no link – it’s not publicly available yet) and have taken a quick glance at Channel 4 On Demand, but don’t anticipate watching much.

However, I do still want to fund the BBC. Why? Because a day doesn’t go by without me listening to Radio 3, downloading excellent podcasts, falling asleep to the shipping forecast and Sailing By and browsing through the gargantuan website (you don’t need me to tell you the link for that one, surely?).

And so the plan is to take out a subscription to the BBC Music magazine and to buy any BBC related DVDs/CDs directly from the BBC Shop. I currently only have the first series of the fine Coast programme on DVD and plan to get the other two ASAP.

Do any of you live the TV-free life?