Recently, I have been subjected to television, for the first time in many a long year. I am staying chez Mamma, as she is unwell and has the Builders In (not euphemisms in either case),and my presence is required. So I have been living on Grand Old Lady Time,and also co-existing with her viewing schedules and quirks. We begin with "Cash In The Attic". This features people hoping that the pointless thing they buy from a charlatan poodlefaker will make a profit when auctioned . Every time an article is hammered away for a gasp-worthy sum, my Mum says "Oh, we had several of THOSE but Your Grandmother/Auntie Madge said "You don't want to hang on to all that old rubbish ", and promptly binned it/them". So far we are down about £5,600 as a result of that side of the family and their insistence on hygiene. The rest of us never throw anything away. Half the family hoard, desperately clutching useless things to their bosoms and squirrelling away items that "Might come in for something/someone".The other half are determined to root out these articles and throw them far, far away. Then the first half go and rescue them and put them back. It is a rather beautiful system, in its way.
So that gets us to the lunchtime news on BBC 1. Mum often becomes animated by the absurdity of the news being announced or more frequently, the tie or blouse of the announcer. "What on Earth possessed him to think of that TIE!"
There follows what the GB calls "Nana's Murdering Programmes", although she has gone off "Midsomer Murders" since an episode featured Morris Dancers, whom she cannot abide.
Thereafter it is the "History Channel",currently fixated upon Hitler. It is interesting to watch footage of World War Two in the company of one who took it personally. As she pointed out,she now knows more about what was going on than she did at the time . She can remember (and ,in the right mood, accurately impersonate) all the sounds made by various bombs aimed at her during the Liverpool Blitz. She was eighteen when the Luftwaffe decided to give her sleepless nights. The sirens would sound and her Mother would root her out of her bed. Grabbing a dog under each arm, she would head for the Anderson shelter in our back garden, and sit, shivering and smoking, until the all clear.Then she would cycle to Bootle and do Important War Work for the Gas Board.
My Dad, a mere suitor at this point, was being shot at in North Africa,good preparation for married life, as he said many many times.
Spending the afternoon with murderers and Hitler does take it out of one, and she often has a nap afterwards.
The annoying thing, to my mind, is the volume of the advertisements for funeral plans and bladder accessories;it's like being shouted at by a morbidly patronising sergeant major. And the remote. The reason it is called that is because it is always out of reach. Chez Mamma,it is also frequently sat upon by The Dog, causing the television channel to change unexpectedly. And aren't there a LOT of channels? I was surprised to discover The Discovery Channel, obviously, but utterly shattered to find one devoted to "Extreme Ironing",and yet another to developing one's "Abs", whatever they are..abstract patterns of thought,maybe? Everything else seems to be about buying, selling,or renovating, houses or people. Oh, and jewellery from QVC, usually in the shape of comedy animals.What grown woman in her right mind wishes to have diamante cows dangling from her earlobes? It's like when you go and buy nightwear. It is routinely plastered with the likenesses of cartooned rabbits,or cats,or somesuch. If not,it will have things written on the front, which is of course the Work of Satan.
Anyway, we were going through upwards of 500 channels, with my Ma dismissing them all in turn with; "American, American, American, Cookery, Fat People Eating, Surgery. American AmericanAmerican, Snooker, Fat People, Fatter People, Surgery On Fat People. Ill Babies. American American Sport, Sport,Sport. Awful Houses, Awful |Children, Fat Children, Fat Anerican Children.... Hitler. Hitler. Breast Surgery, Hitler's Breast Surgery.."
They can throw the remote away, for me. The Dog can find something else warm to sit on.
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