When I was a child, we had winter. Snow fell. It was occasionally deep. As a child, it as fun. As a grown up, I imagine it was like today. Getting about would be difficult and potentially dangerous, only with very fewer cars.
Occasionally, it interfered with sporting events and pools panelist experts had to predict results of matches postponed. I had to scrape off the ice, like many, from the inside of my bedroom window to see out in a morning and, unless someone ie an adult, had got up and lit a fire, you stayed cold.
What thankfully we did not have was TV news. We lived knowing it was cold, knowing that milk may not be delivered - if the delivery failed, you had to walk to the dairy!-and knowing that it was fun for children and hard work for the grown ups. But today? TV journalists leap around like children who have never seen snow and continually tell you how cold it is. They turn up in areas where you wouldn't dream of being - even in benign weather!
We all have TV tales of winter, of snow, of problems doing what we do daily. And we all get on with. Sadly, there are tragedies, as there are all year round, but these TV people are the biggest joke.
It is as if only they are about, only they can experience the weather in all its glory and horror. I find it hootingly amusing to be told that it is absolutely freezing by some TV journalist who appears as high as the temperature is low. They move about the district, like some broadcasting chess game, and, at the same time, warn you how dangerous it may be to travel.
And they are so extra caring that they tell you to take care and, unbelievably, tell you to wrap up well.
After a time, fresh snow loses its initial beauty and turns to mush, trodden down and dirtied by people just getting on with it. Similarly, the TV news follows a similar path. The TV news has now become slushy, and become a tedious and an unnecessary lingering hindrance to normal life.
The only way to deal with this bleak winter spell in broadcasting is to turn it off. But I find its tedious nature and predictability fascinating. I want to devise a TV winter Bingo game, where players score for words broadcast.
But I won't. Spring will be here soon
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Friday, 1 January 2010
Who will buy?
Let's face facts. We have three sofas. They're all leather covered and all are comfortable. In fact the one we've had for ten years is just coming into maturity as a piece of furniture. It is generous,warm to sit on and will last, accidents apart, for a life time. In addition, its design is quite classical and thus timeless, being of the design that came out of the 1920s/1930s - the kind of sofa I imagine being on the Queen Mary, or in smart hotels of that time. And the colour.... Its toffee coloured with simple cream piping.
As furniture goes, a good three piece should last a while and that is my belief that I may not need to buy another - ever. It may be passed down to another generation, which used to happen I think.
So I am amused by all the current advertising on television and indeed in the magazines for sofas and for sofas at remarkably inexpensive and easily managed prices.
They are clearly targetting youngish people, people who might find it a bit of an effort to stump up the cash for such items, or those who, as fickle fashion followers, may wish to re-define their lifestyle quite frequently with a new look in furniture. Whatever the route, the furniture ads are in your face when you tune in to TV.
Once upon a seasonal TV sales pitch, it was holidays. Companies strove for your two week attention at resorts around the UK and later abroad, especially the holiday camps. The very organ of information of TV stuff, the Radio Times was thickened by the extra pages carrying the benefits of a week in Clacton or Dunoon. These pages were stapled annoyingly between Christmas day's and Boxing day's schedules. Ripping them out resulted in the total disintegration of the magazine.
Later came the part works magazines which gave subscribers the opportunity to buy, over 48 months, bits and bobs needed to build the Santa Maria or a James Bond car. Each magazine came with the next part and in two years, after a layout of about £400 you had a model to be proud of. Or could be, if they all turned up.
But now the big push is sofas. So having three already, they are neither tempting or exciting. I'll simply stretch out and enjoy the ones I have already.
As furniture goes, a good three piece should last a while and that is my belief that I may not need to buy another - ever. It may be passed down to another generation, which used to happen I think.
So I am amused by all the current advertising on television and indeed in the magazines for sofas and for sofas at remarkably inexpensive and easily managed prices.
They are clearly targetting youngish people, people who might find it a bit of an effort to stump up the cash for such items, or those who, as fickle fashion followers, may wish to re-define their lifestyle quite frequently with a new look in furniture. Whatever the route, the furniture ads are in your face when you tune in to TV.
Once upon a seasonal TV sales pitch, it was holidays. Companies strove for your two week attention at resorts around the UK and later abroad, especially the holiday camps. The very organ of information of TV stuff, the Radio Times was thickened by the extra pages carrying the benefits of a week in Clacton or Dunoon. These pages were stapled annoyingly between Christmas day's and Boxing day's schedules. Ripping them out resulted in the total disintegration of the magazine.
Later came the part works magazines which gave subscribers the opportunity to buy, over 48 months, bits and bobs needed to build the Santa Maria or a James Bond car. Each magazine came with the next part and in two years, after a layout of about £400 you had a model to be proud of. Or could be, if they all turned up.
But now the big push is sofas. So having three already, they are neither tempting or exciting. I'll simply stretch out and enjoy the ones I have already.
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