I don't watch television any more

I'd recommend getting Sky+ to look up and record stuff you might like to watch/listen, as long as you don't mind purchasing the services of a ruthless tyrant more than you mind missing the new series of Scrubs (uh...)

And now I do a lot less of all those things, and a lot more sitting on the couch obsessing over whodunnit in CSI and Law & Order and, erm, A Touch Of Frost, and OH DEAR LORD HELP ME NOW, I'M ADDICTED!!!

The only new programming I've really felt I've missed is "Shameless", and I do hear that that is going to be repeated from this Tuesday; hopefully I'll be able to get kind parents to begin taping it for me. :) I generally have such a backlog of TV programmes and films to watch when I am home that it seems pointless to watch run-of-the-mill normal TV much.

I've become far more of a radio listener in general; solely BBC I admit, and I see little reason to check out any other [bar Resonance FM, which I keep forgetting to check out online]. Radio 4 can have its smugness, but there is intelligent, thoughtful fare on that channel. Radio 3 is quite an education in various strands of classical music, and has a lovely, softly-spoken, elevated air about it all... plus it's got Kershaw. Radio 2 I compulsively listen to on Saturdays; sometimes enjoyable Brian Matthew followed by Jonathan Ross - who on the radio is an altogether more palatable figure than you'd think from most of his recent TV work. Then, an at-times amusing hour of comedy, and then the marvellous Pick of the Pops. Sadly, the ultra-bland Richard Allinson then comes on and I switch off within seconds. ;-) Radio 1 I tend to listen to for the charts and Westwood, but little else, though I feel I ought to listen to Peel, as his show's still good, though not always to my taste. Radio 5: Sports Report and the whole Saturday football reportage is wonderful... well, especially so when Stuart Hall is reporting on a match. Digital radio online has been great as I've caught most of Paul Morley's current run on BBC6, and BBC7 is quite a treasure trove... The Peter Tinniswood "Uncle Mort" radio pieces are addictive; somewhere between Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood" and Viv Stanshall's "Rawlinson End", but shot through with a deadpan, dour Yorkshireness. Have any ILXors ever seen Tinniswood's TV sitcom that centred on Uncle Mort? "I Didn't Know You Cared" I think it was called. The sort of thing that is never likely to be repeated... interestingly, it seems Tinniswood himself preferred the radio format; he certainly seems a master of it with the Mort stuff recently repeated on BBC7...
You also get the radio Hancock, Steptoe, Dad's Army... bliss. :)

So yes, I settle perfectly amicably for radio and internet for my entertainments; as well as CDs and books obviously. TV is not essential; though stuff that's on it can be. ;-)

dumbest typo ever.

hmm.. I misread 'flicking' as 'fucking'.

yeh, anyway.. yeah, elvish was the king of the elves! that's why he was great at shooting. if i was elvis, i'd've taught em straight! I'd've grabbed em by the gobble, looked in their faces and said "OI! Ya bastards bollocks fuckin, yer!".

Cos they don't know do they? Elvis wasn't taking aim at his set for nothing. The King didn't need no shit quality programming did he?

I know for a fact that Presley loved his telly. It was his pride and joy! But if it played up and started showing Big Brother, that's it - BLAM! BOOM! KABLAMMOOO!!!!!!!!!!

/me passes out

A couple of decades ago, I lived wholly without a tv for several years. During that time, when I did encounter a television turned on (literally to any channel or program whatsoever) I couldn't help but notice that it was inane to the point of insanity. I'd lost the taste for it. It is a pity I fell back to owning one, really.

over last week: Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhatten" video, Icehouse "Icehouse," Sheena Easton "Sugar Walls" etc. etc.

But what if the glue is the really ugly clotted kind?

Slight xpost Anthony also VERY OTM -- with my switch last year to the new apartment and higher rent increases, cable was simply put an unnecessary luxury that would cost too much a month. I use the Net constantly and pay happily for that access, so it was an easy decision to make.

My TV only works as a VCR/DVD monitor. Haven't had a functioning TV in over 10 years. Rarely miss it.

I think there's a distinction there between that stance (partially because it's so straightforward and unapologetic) and the Onion-parody worthy one you mention, for instance.

Abandoning television isn't the only form of that removal -- deep-subculture people bother me just as much -- it's just the one under discussion, and the one that's easiest for people to adopt.

The "but there's just nothing good on" argument is fine for people who just don't get around to watching television, but sounds like laziness, too -- of course it takes effort to find good television. As opposed to, what, the people handing out the good books for free on the street corners, or the radio stations that only play music you like, with neither DJs nor commercial interruptions?

*scratches chin* This is a very interesting way of phrasing it, in large part because of the moral overlay on top of it -- but I think those could be separate issues. But getting to this key point, is the argument that if you are removing yourself from this awareness -- or this filter or means of communication or whatever, if you're only specifically talking about TV -- then you are somehow...not a good citizen? Not a good critic? How would you spell it out?

the people handing out the good books for free on the street corners

Well...

the radio stations that only play music you like, with neither DJs nor commercial interruptions?

Wasn't that a good chunk of Internet radio, or isn't it still?

As for good citizen vs good critic vs good something else -- give me till later this afternoon, cause I'm not sure how well it'll come out off the top of my head.

I'm not sure myself, since I rely on my own collection or mp3s for music. But people do seem to seek it out, and perhaps it's a fairly easy process these days, who knows?

As for good citizen vs good critic vs good something else -- give me till later this afternoon, cause I'm not sure how well it'll come out off the top of my head.

No worries -- I need to go get some lunch anyway.

Citizens, on the other hand ...

It's a variant on the way I feel about relationships (and I think most people feel the same way) -- because of my girlfriend, I've watched more episodes of CSI and forensics documentaries than I would otherwise, I make a better anchovy-free pasta puttanesca than I would if it weren't for her dislike of anchovies, and when I run across issues about Latin or ancient Greek in my ancient history/early Christianity reading, I pay more attention, so I can bring them to her attention. I have a deeper investment in the things I know are important to her, because I believe in the importance of common interests, common experiences, and multiple viewpoints in a relationship.

Likewise, the same thing goes on with friendships, varying in investment according to the kind of friendship etc. -- I sent an Amazon link to a friend of mine re: a book he might find useful for his thesis, I bought Donnie Darko for another friend so we could talk about it, I sent my brother a movie about an ex-con getting his life together because my brother's an ex-con getting his life together. Etc. (The first three examples to come to mind are Things I Bought From Amazon because I have Amazon open in another window, I think.)

Naturally there's no reason to treat the whole world as your close friend, and I don't think it would necessarily be a good idea to do so; I do think that a useful measure of "good" considers how well you treat people who aren't your friends for reasons other than enmity. The people you don't hate, the people you have no bad blood with, but you don't know them well, or you don't click, or you simply don't know them at all.

Since I see that investment in interests and common experience -- an investment in knowing what's going on with your friends, not just in the blog/penpal/Christmas-letter sense of "the anecdotes they tell to serialize their lives," but in the sense of having a handle -- however rough -- on what they experience, in looking up what Crohn's syndrome is if their grandmother has been diagnosed with it, and bothering to ask "who they hell are Electra Woman and Dyna Girl" if they're waxing nostalgic about preteen masturbatory experiences -- as an important part of maintaining a friendship, I see a watered-down version of it as key to maintaining a relationship with the rest of your community.

I don't go as far as Jesus's prescription of open commensality, and I go back and forth on whether or not that's a goal to aspire to or if it was just a good thing for him and his.

It isn't a matter of watching the shows that are popular: television-watching itself is an experience shared by most of the culture, such that all American television-watchers have things in common which they wouldn't gain through other experiences. You can't watch network television without at least being aware of reality television, for instance, and it's a peripheral-vision awareness, one different in quality and degree from someone's verbal description of it. There's a grammar and a vocabulary you won't pick up in translation.

It's an entire medium, not just a genre or an instance, and willfully, deliberately removing yourself from it is a kind of intentional ignorance or illiteracy that I can't get behind: it's not simply the movie medium on a smaller screen, because television can and does do things movies can't and won't. (Teleliteracy makes a decent, if somewhat behind the times now, argument about this; it was the only textbook I used when I taught a class on the subject.)

Simply not having time, or time to make the effort, isn't a real offense; I don't remember all my friends' birthdays, and of the pool of interests among my friends, I pick and choose consciously and unconsciously which ones to learn more about. Deciding in advance that the effort isn't worthwhile, that the investment won't be made, that no good will come of it, is an antisocial decision.

(That said: you watch MST3K, and while that's not the whole conversation, I think it's much closer to "the television-watching experience" than even a lot of other recorded-series-watching is. So it's not like you've cut TV out altogether.)