Rule Britannia

Still, it was lucky we happen to live in a country where – it seems – there are so many people who think they know what’s best for us, so we could – quite easily – have all those troublesome decisions about how to live our lives taken for us whilst we sat down to see if there was – for once – anything good on the telly.

Perhaps, I mused later, as the remote control surfed its increasingly weary way up through all those mysterious shopping channels that sell everything no-one has ever wanted to buy, that this is why the country is in the state it is in. After all, during my formative years it was generally agreed that Britain had the finest TV in the world. So, we as a country got used to sitting around and leaving the rest of it all to those who liked to interfere.

Now, though, well….

Perhaps it is too late; perhaps we left them all alone too long; let them have it all their own way for too long. Perhaps we will never be able to grab control back, especially as the TV watching habit has now become far too ingrained, despite the quality of the programmes declining to such a pitifully low standard that, these days, even some American TV is better than the home-grown stuff.

Still, though, all is not lost. We can still do a decent computer game every now and then. Not up to the standard of Manic Miner, Lemmings, Sensible Soccer and Elite, but still far better than going outside and discovering what is really going on out there.