Reformed addict
By Primal Sneeze ~ December 11th, 2007. Filed under: TV.
We didn’t have TV until I was about 12 or 13. I hope no kids are reading this as that’d scare the living daylights out of them.
An aunt got one of those new fangled coloured TVs and gave us her old black and white. Such excitement. It was like Christmas. Probably because it was Christmas.
The snag was we didn’t have a spare socket. To the rescue rode my uncle. (No messing – he had a bike). A table was pulled to the middle of the floor and the set was plugged into the light fitting. It worked fine and we all huddled around to watch a war movie. It may have been called Mother Goose. I’m not sure. Maybe that was just the call-sign used by the pilot of the lead plane. It’s all I remember.
It wasn’t until the new year my uncle returned and wired up an extra socket. All over Christmas, the auld fella would sit with just the flickering light of the TV and the fire, grumbling as he tried to read his paper.
Up until then, I had been dabbling in the drug that is TV. And like all addicts, I was creative in getting my fix. An old man down the road had one and it put it on on Sunday afternoons to watch the big game from Croke Park. I didn’t mind the hurling but loathed the football, yet I’d sit through it feigning excitement and making appropriate comments and noises. Once the game was over, he’d put the kettle on and produce the biscuits and buns. Ah shur, leave it on, I’d suggest. There might be something else good coming up. It was always Tarzan after the game and I knew it. He did too I suppose and just played along. He wanted the company, I wanted the telly.
That was years ago. Months ago I turned off my own TV and haven’t turned it on since. I don’t know how for long. It wasn’t intentional. I didn’t even notice I’d kicked the habit until I was asked if I’d seen such-and-such.
If I get rid of it altogether by year end I won’t have to renew my license come January. That’s appealing. The license itself is appalling. All that money for RTÉ and they just show rubbish. They don’t even have Tarzan any more for crisake! Even the ads they run reminding us we need a license are rubbish. One had three Irish twenty some things pretending they couldn’t speak English. The inspector responds in Polish and Chinese, and reminds the guy who says he’s from Barbados, that English is spoken there. The funny thing is, no Polish person can understand what the actor’s saying – it’s definitely not Polish.
If I hold onto it, it will be to watch DVDs. I can do that on my computer but the quality is not the same. I’ll see how things go during the feathers – there are always DVDs then, and time to watch them. And some worth viewing a second time weeks later.
Yeah, I may hold onto it just for that. What’s bugging me though, is I’d have kicked the habit, yet I’d still be paying for the drugs.
I remember being stunned seeing colour telly at a friend’s house – we only had black and white!
You could get a good flatscreen monitor and use that for watching DVDs, better than nothing and saves you paying the license. I don’t know if you could get someone to take the aerial bit out of the telly – if it can’t receive a signal you don’t have to pay the license. At least I think it works that way – you could get a row from the inspectors though.
Someone’s done it! Someone’s living the dream of the free. He switched off the TV without repercussions. If only I could do that. If only.
Don’t you have to pay for the drugs anyway – if you have a radio that is – albeit at a reduced rate?
I turned off in ‘98 and to kick start it I did it in extreme fashion by way of refusing to even look at a screen from the moment 1998 started to the end of the year. It meant being a bit rude at times, even anti-social, but the payback was great.
Once the first year was out of the way I was then happy to allow my eyes to see television screens from time to time just so long as I didn’t own the screen. It’s been an interesting 10 years but that 1st year was hilarious at times and I’ve long planned a post on it.
I fear that even if you go without a radio as well as a TV that the government will begin to charge you a license fee anyway because a computer can be used to watch and listen to RTE television and radio.
Caro – I might look into those suggestions – yeah, there’d be a row for sure though. I’d relish that!
Mr. Trousers – You’re back! Sorry, I hadn’t noticed. I shall sacrifice a fatted calf for the prodigal son.
Eolaí – Nope, radio is free of licensing. Unless you play it in a public place in which case you pay royalties to IMRO.
10 years is quite some time. I suppose the first seven were the hardest.
Spot on with the computer bit – It is talked about every so often. Apparently, the wording of the law actually applies to any apparatus that can receive TV signals, but they (Leinster House) never seem able to make a call on whether to enforce it.
I think a computer only counts if it has a TV card you can plug the aerial into…
Welcome to the Club Primal! My house is a TV free zone. It has been since 1998. I never miss it. I smile to myself when I visit or stay over with friends and watch them frantically button hop to persuade me that there is something worth watching.
I cheat. I don’t watch a lot of TV per se, but I watch the shows I want to see online. Most networks offer them on their websites the day or so after initial airing. It’s free (for now)and there are fewer commercials. This way when I have some spare time,(right)I can catch up on Lost.
Caro – You could be right- that makes sense. I’ve heard so many conflicting reports from experts on the radio this year I don’t know what to believe.
Grannymar – 1998! Just like Eolaí. Was there an anti-TV revolution that year that passed me by?
Sugar – See, that’s the difference – you have choice when you use the net and are not bombarded with crap that you have no interest in, yet still view out of brainwashed laziness.
I hardly watch any more either because I’ve more or less replaced telly with the internet. We can quibble about which is worse, I guess, but at least the internet is interactive and you don’t get sucked into that beta brain state they say you switch to in front of the box.
I don’t know another country where people have to pay an annual fee to have a TV. Outrageous!!!!! If the government tried to do that in Australia there’d be mass protests. If the government in Turkey did it, there’d be mass murders as TV is the only entertainment for the poor people who can’t go out and enjoy movies, pubs, meals out etc. And there ARE a lot of poor people.
Taxing TV… Then of course you have to have Setanta or Sky or whatever else there is out there, only to watch English TV anyways. I do like the nature, art, history related documentaries though you can find most on DVD these days.
Well, if you can make TV go away from your home, my already high level of respect for you would tri-fold Primal.
Oh by the way, I don’t remember Tarzan but at my house it was Pink Panther for me, all the way on the little old black and white.
I’ve seen “Mother Goose.” It’s good. Cary Grant plays a cranky older drunkard who has to host a school teacher and her fair charges on an island during WWII.
I lived without a tv for 2 years. I could give up that easier than blogging and internet access.
Sam – You know, you may have hit the other end of the pointy metal thing with the heavy noise-making thing – the Internet has replaced the TV. But that said, the Internet is where I work (it’s handy, the buses are frequent) so I can claim it isn’t an addiction like telly is.
Gayé – I love documentaries. Without fail, I get given a box set or two for the Feathers. Can’t wait for that part.
I remember watching the Pink Panther in B&W too. Which reminds me, I was mad about Harold Lloyd. And even with colour he’s still in B&W.
Medbh – Yeah that’s it! It’s all coming back to me now (as sailor said, pissing into the wind). Blogging I could forego, reading other blogs would be the problem.