The Family Divided By Television

The Family Divided By Television ©

By Michael Casey

Well I haven’t written anything new for a day or two, and I wasn’t going to write anything tonight either, that was until we became a family divided by television. I’ve come to the family desktop to escape watching the 2^nd half of a film my wife first  watched 10 years ago when I was working at a hotel by the airport at the NEC, this being at the other side of Birmingham from where I live.

The Core didn’t look too interesting so I’m here instead talking to you all. Our girls are upstairs eating chocolate while the cat Totoro is pretending to be Goldilocks, and sleeping in or on or under all the beds, such is her life. The last day of April 2016 is like winter again, she has just discovered my room, so as it’s the warmest thanks to it being South facing and having a mass of central heating pipes running through it.

Yes, we are a family divided by television. If we don’t agree on what to watch we set a recording going while one or another of us watches what they want. As I’m a news junkie, I can just watch BBC or Sky news on the computer while the girls watch what they want. As we can watch Chinese tv too my wife can watch a serial on Phoenix should she want to.

A couple of years ago there was a really gripping serial we all loved about a romance it was very funny, especially as the boy worked in the marriage office. His ex wanted him back but in the end true love conquered all, which is what my own mother told me, little did I know I’d end up marrying a Shanghai girl, with the help of God and two policemen as my mum used to say.

Sky+ divides and unites families, you can record your favourite shows and watch them together when you are all home from work or school. If you have a student in the family, or a budding Dr to be, then you can record the important tv and it can be watched at a later time. Then being able to stop the live show as well that’s a godsend, because toilet breaks and rushing to the fridge for more fuel can be accommodated, this really a great innovation. 

When I grew up we only had 2 channels in black and white to start with, and the cat slept on the microwave size/shape tv, because it was so hot after an evening viewing.  Now with slim lcd tvs cats no longer do this.

Families do come together for chocolate and favourite shows:- Grimm, Blacklist, Elementary. Then Peppa Pig must be watched, this is now a cult programme with teenagers, why I have no idea. I’d eat Peppa Pig  on some nice bread with ketchup, but for my girls and their friends Peppa Pig is a cult.

All tv is suspended while the wife watches the BBC weather report, it’s an addiction of hers, luckily the advert breaks are so long you can watch the BBC weather while the adverts are on. Ditto I can watch the headlines before we can switch to the start of our favourite programmes, or we hit record then rewind to the beginning if we’ve missed a bit.

As I talk to you my wife has abandoned the Core and I can hear the Bee Gees singing in the next room behind me, either that or the neighbour’s cat is being castrated, so high are the high notes. If I hear anything good I can return to the living room to view for myself, I sit in the corner on the naughty chair. The irony is that we were buying new furniture from Argos prior to my bypass op, then when I got out of hospital it was too low and soft for me to sit on. So I sit on a hard dining chair in the corner, so that I don’t irritate my chest scars.

Obviously as a bloke I’d love a huge tv with a sound bar etc,  plus all the Sky film channels,  when I win the lottery I’ll have one in my mansion, Toshiba of course as they make great tvs. Then we can watch the Sky tv 6 part adaptation of my novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, well all in my dreams. Though the family might never want to watch it, you know what they say about a prophet in his own town, a  man and his tv series might be the same. For we are a family divided by television.