You know me, I have pretensions to snobbery. Which, really, is worse, in some respects, than actually being a snob. (Although Warren at work did call me a snob today, in fact he was horrible to me all day, until I started moaning, then he started on Yim, who only joined us this week so I said - look, see what I said, Warren's a really horrible person* - he called me a snob because I said I was in Argos to buy a Sony DVD player, not Elizabeth Duke jewellery. He'd already said that he was surprised that I lowered myself to Argos).
For years I absolutely refused to get satellite telly. Four-and-a-half channels is good enough for me, I said. Who needs all the rubbish that's pumped out to the unthinking masses in the name of entertainment but really so that Rupert Murdoch can control their minds. (I still have a ring binder dating from the Wapping Dispute with stickers on saying 'Boycott Murdoch'.)
It hurt, it really hurt, to get satellite. A dish (think Lady Bracknell, think handbag) on my twee Victorian cottage - ooh, my neighbour got listed yesterday, I live next to a listed building (how swanky is that!). But the things we do for love, heh! I did it for Jimmy. I made it absolutely clear to the mockers and scorners at work, that I would only watch the intellectual channels - and Manchester United Live, of course.
And you know what, the intellectual channels are proving to be just wonderful. I haven't actually watched Discovery, or the History Channel yet. Who needs them? I'm addicted to Performance and Artsworld. (And yes, they are in rivalry with each other - why else would both of them show the Nutcracker, with the Bolshoi, at the same time the Wednesday before Christmas? Why, if Artsworld is doing a Verdi Chronology in January and February, are Performance showing Otello next Monday and Un Ballo in Maschera the Monday after?)
I was surfing through the Radio Times at work at lunchtime, and, as I announced to the world, the only *good* thing on telly tonight is Victoria Wood on Diets. As those who have met me will know, I don't do diets. Then I corrected myself and pointed out that Jim Davidson's commercial breakdown was on. Someone mentioned hanging, then someone else mentioned a gas chamber. (For those of you outside the UK who don't know who Jim Davidson is - he's a racist, sexist, obnoxious, right-wing, unfunny, twunt who passes himself off as a comic and always goes to entertain 'Our Boys' in a warzone poor sods think yourself lucky.)
So I declared that I would go shopping this evening. But you know me, I reject shopping-as-a-hobby as the work of Satan, so it was into Markles and Sparkles, find black suit, try on, pay for, whilst glaring childishly at the model on the leaflet for the new M&S card. Then quick dash round downstairs, pick up some tops, ostensibly for work, but probably unsuitable with those necklines, and home within two hours of leaving the office. (I'm told I shop like a man!)
Er, nothing on telly, what shall I do. Switch telly on. ooh, look, there's a concert on Performance. So I watched it. Well, I can quite honestly say that it's the first time I have seen in a concert, televised or live, a conductor walk off the podium halfway through a piece, with a microphone in hand, and go and stand with the audience, singing.
And now, I've just remembered I need to eat, so I shall bid you goodnight. Once I've checked my commas, of course. And my html tags. Which are truly evil things - BTW wasn't it cool that Tim Berners-Lee got his K, finally. I've been saying for years that he should. My next tip is Dame Delia Smith. Don't forget you read it here first.
This post has been brought to you with more deviations than a Ronnie Corbett monologue.
You know, this blog used to have rants on it...
* he's not really
