Read Online Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse by David Mitchell - Free Book Online
Authors: David Mitchell
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on, I turn on the TV, it engages me for a few minutes, then gradually I lose interest and return to my computer, maybe do a bit of work – writing this sentence, for example – then pop back to the kettle and/or television. I’m going there now. Back in a minute.
I’m back. A professional couple from Peterborough who are looking to relocate to somewhere with more space for the husband’s motorbike collection didn’t like house number two because it was too close to a noisy road. The host suggested double-glazing. I wandered away and put some toast on.
Texturally, daytime TV is a delicate and remarkable thing. The morning schedule on BBC1 is a series of programmes that, while apparently almost unbelievably bland, becomes more intriguing and varied the closer one looks, like a patchwork of a thousand different beiges, yet retains the key attribute of being too boring to watch for more than 20 minutes at a stretch. The toast has popped.
Well, that’s the last of the good jam. A mother and daughter from Plymouth just sold a decanter for a £19 loss, but then it didn’t have its own stopper. The next lot was a 1950s Mickey Mouse ashtray, so I went for a look at Twitter.
BBC Daytime is a groundbreaking experiment into how much people can be induced to take a passing interest in activities that don’t concern them. There’s a programme about a company that specialises in finding the relatives of people who have diedintestate. It simply follows their working day: “Gladys died in St Thomas’s nursing home in 2006, leaving £82,000 from the sale of her house. The nurses at the home say she often spoke of a half-sister, Gwen, who died of pneumonia during the three-day week. But did Gwen ever marry and have children? Investigator Peter Edwards goes to Preston records office to find out.” Then they film the guy setting his satnav.
There’s a programme in which people who want to move house are shown three hastily chosen properties, pick one and are then allowed to “try before they buy”. This means they sit in it for part of an afternoon. They get the full experience of residence but not for quite long enough to need the loo. At the end, they’re asked if they’re going to buy the house, and they always – in my experience absolutely always – say no.
There’s my personal favourite,
Homes Under the Hammer,
where the production company has just set up a video camera at a property auction and sent presenters to stalk the successful buyers. And there are three different antique-purveying shows: one where the antiques are bought and sold in the same show; one where an expert trawls someone’s attic for valuables in order to raise them money for the scuba holiday of their dreams; and one which is basically a more mercenary version of
Antiques Roadshow
with worse antiques. The subtle distinctions between these formats would be lost on those with proper jobs but are as apparent to me as different types of snow to an Inuit.
Just made a tea and watched an RSPCA man give a woman a stern talking to for not giving her horse the right jabs. He’ll be checking up again in six months.
I need programmes like these, shows during which it is completely unnecessary to think. Of course, I’ve got better things to watch – there’s a cellophane-wrapped box set of
The Sopranos
on the shelf above my TV that’s been gathering dust for three years – but they’re no good to me. I need brief distractionsthat are easy to be distracted from. If I unwrapped a DVD, it would be like cracking open the scotch – I might as well file for bankruptcy.
I know daytime TV isn’t primarily provided as brain massage for lazy comedy writers, but I wonder how many of its regular viewers are as displeased with it as the BBC Trust? My suspicion is that those trustees don’t usually watch it; they’re not familiar with the genre. They’re comparing it to prime-time programming, which people are perfectly able to watch during the daytime
I’m back. A professional couple from Peterborough who are looking to relocate to somewhere with more space for the husband’s motorbike collection didn’t like house number two because it was too close to a noisy road. The host suggested double-glazing. I wandered away and put some toast on.
Texturally, daytime TV is a delicate and remarkable thing. The morning schedule on BBC1 is a series of programmes that, while apparently almost unbelievably bland, becomes more intriguing and varied the closer one looks, like a patchwork of a thousand different beiges, yet retains the key attribute of being too boring to watch for more than 20 minutes at a stretch. The toast has popped.
Well, that’s the last of the good jam. A mother and daughter from Plymouth just sold a decanter for a £19 loss, but then it didn’t have its own stopper. The next lot was a 1950s Mickey Mouse ashtray, so I went for a look at Twitter.
BBC Daytime is a groundbreaking experiment into how much people can be induced to take a passing interest in activities that don’t concern them. There’s a programme about a company that specialises in finding the relatives of people who have diedintestate. It simply follows their working day: “Gladys died in St Thomas’s nursing home in 2006, leaving £82,000 from the sale of her house. The nurses at the home say she often spoke of a half-sister, Gwen, who died of pneumonia during the three-day week. But did Gwen ever marry and have children? Investigator Peter Edwards goes to Preston records office to find out.” Then they film the guy setting his satnav.
There’s a programme in which people who want to move house are shown three hastily chosen properties, pick one and are then allowed to “try before they buy”. This means they sit in it for part of an afternoon. They get the full experience of residence but not for quite long enough to need the loo. At the end, they’re asked if they’re going to buy the house, and they always – in my experience absolutely always – say no.
There’s my personal favourite,
Homes Under the Hammer,
where the production company has just set up a video camera at a property auction and sent presenters to stalk the successful buyers. And there are three different antique-purveying shows: one where the antiques are bought and sold in the same show; one where an expert trawls someone’s attic for valuables in order to raise them money for the scuba holiday of their dreams; and one which is basically a more mercenary version of
Antiques Roadshow
with worse antiques. The subtle distinctions between these formats would be lost on those with proper jobs but are as apparent to me as different types of snow to an Inuit.
Just made a tea and watched an RSPCA man give a woman a stern talking to for not giving her horse the right jabs. He’ll be checking up again in six months.
I need programmes like these, shows during which it is completely unnecessary to think. Of course, I’ve got better things to watch – there’s a cellophane-wrapped box set of
The Sopranos
on the shelf above my TV that’s been gathering dust for three years – but they’re no good to me. I need brief distractionsthat are easy to be distracted from. If I unwrapped a DVD, it would be like cracking open the scotch – I might as well file for bankruptcy.
I know daytime TV isn’t primarily provided as brain massage for lazy comedy writers, but I wonder how many of its regular viewers are as displeased with it as the BBC Trust? My suspicion is that those trustees don’t usually watch it; they’re not familiar with the genre. They’re comparing it to prime-time programming, which people are perfectly able to watch during the daytime
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