Broadening My Horizons.

After the heady stuff in the last post, it’s back to playing the game...

I’m wondering whether to give up television altogether. Now that I’ve got digital, I have a staggering array of channels at my disposal. ‘You’re bound to find plenty to watch now,’ said my new neighbour. Really? I give it a go several times a day. I flick the ‘Channel Up’ button repeatedly, which gives a temporary display showing the programme now playing on each channel. Sometimes I stop at about channel 40, sometimes I persevere into the 100’s. Result: nothing, nothing, nothing.

(Some of the later channels are porn channels, by the way. I spent a few minutes watching them the other night. I would have found them hilarious had I not been so disturbed by the flagrant way in which the sanctity of the Feminine Principle was being trashed. They consist of various excuses for real women – possibly plastic, I’m not sure – lying or kneeling topless on a bed, rubbing their chests, making their bottoms waggle, and pouting at the camera once a minute, apparently on cue. And while they’re doing that, they’re talking to some bozos on the phone who are apparently paying £1.50 a minute for the ‘pleasure.’ I’ve no idea what was being said; having the sound as well as the sight would have been just too far beyond the call of duty. The things I suffer in the name of experience and this blog! I suppose it’s all rather sad, really, but no more of that for me, thank you.)

So anyway, I was flicking through the channels today while I was eating my lunch, when I came across a programme entitled ‘Feng Shui.’

Now, it saddens me to see the trivial commercialisation of these ancient traditions being perpetrated by the business end of the New Age movement, but I do have some faith in their roots, so I decided to have a look. It was none other than a shopping channel – presumably one purporting to sell items that encourage good feng shui. The item they were selling when I arrived was a green leather handbag. Two people were talking very earnestly about it.

All in all, it comes back to my wanting to stop the world and get the hell off.