Yesterday evening we were sitting in the living room with Sam when he strolled over to the TV, pressed the button – and turned it on!!!
Part of me was proud at his ability to watch and learn. For weeks he has been trying to turn it on but he has either not had the strength to push against the spring on the button or has possibly not been pressing the button in the optimal spot.
Last night though, he got it just right. Spot on. On came CBeebies.
The other part of me is horrified though. When kids can’t turn the TV on then you have some control. Now if weleave him alone for 5 minutes we run the risk of (with a few random remote control button presses thrown in for good measure) coming in to find him glued to ‘The Exorcist’ on TV on demand. A milestone has been reached. A line in the sand has been crossed.
We’ve always been advocates of a little bit of TV doing no harm. Anyone with kids will know the kind of breather which 20 minutes of ‘In the Night Garden’ can give you. It’s educational to an extent as well I suppose (honest!).
I remember when I was a boy, my parents were friends with a family who didn’t have a television. I remember lots of families when I was growing up who didn’t have a phone (it’s unthinkable now, isn’t it) but not to have a television? Turns out they were completely fucked up religious nuts. ‘Coronation Street? Not for us. We’ll have a reading from the Book of Corinthians thank you very much’. We’re not talking your average church-goer here. These were slightly more into it than that if my memory serves me correctly.
The last few days I’ve been messing about with Spotify. I’ve been a big fan of Last FM for a long time and this seemed like a variation on a theme with the subtle difference that you can pick the actual track you want to listen to. Not bad. I’ll keep you posted. The down side is that every half a dozen tracks or so, you are subjected to an advert (only about 20 seconds long) from the likes of the Energy Saving Trust or Spotify themselves advertising their subscription (ad free) package. I can see this sort of thing being the way the music industry is going though. I personally don’t have the same cash to spend on CD’s these days.
Back to the subject of TV – grown up TV this time – we’ve recently started watching ‘The Wire’. My wife and I have fairly different taste in television so it’s a rare occurrence when we both find a series that we are really into. Previously it was the Sopranos. About 74 hours of our life which we’ll never get back but it was unadulterated class. We are now into season 2 of ‘The Wire’. Slightly different from the first series in terms of character focus but it’s warming up nicely.
Wonder what we’ll be doing this weekend…..
Incidentally, this is the first post in 4 days which isn’t a list. Bet you are glad.
on Feb 13th, 2009 at 8:59 am
I remember when my son was about 3 yrs old and he worked out how to open the front door. I’d left him for 1 minute whilst I was doing something in another room and to my horror I found him out in the front garden just about to open the front gate!
My wife and I have totally different tastes in TV, normally we end up with me in one room watching “sky turbo” and her in the other lost in “Corry”.
on Feb 13th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I’m now at the really sad stage where both my sons can work the PVR thingy. And I can’t.
on Feb 15th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Corinthians