Pet Peeve #7

People who are proud of not owning a television.


I don't have any particular grievance with people who choose not to own a TV yet manage to keep quite about it. My displeasure is reserved for those who claim or imply that a domestic deprivation should in fact be regarded as something that positively distinguishes them on a social/intellectual level. You know the type:

"I don't have a television, because I love BOOKS. If I was an inanimate object, I would be a BOOK, because BOOKS are deep and clever, like me. In fact I want to marry and fuck BOOKS all day and everyday."

I'm not suggesting that there is anything wrong with books, FAR FROM IT. I'm as dismissive of the anti-book brigade as I am of the pillocks who publicly disregard television. It's just that (just as in television) the majority of books are shit, and are written as a result of cynical, commercial considerations. It is bullocks to suggest that they hold an intrinsic cultural superiority over TV.

Often, those boasting about the absence of television from their lives choose an online social networking service as their platform. You know the type:

Favourite TV Shows: "I don't have a television, I'm too busy reading books and living life to the max."

Anyone who opts to utilise their Facebook/Myspace profile to advertise winning character traits such as "not watching TV", is treading on thin ice. There is no way that the Internet is a more intellectually valid medium than television when these twerps are at the keyboard's helm. These goons aren't using their broadband connection to download the works of Chekhov. They are spending 90% of their time cagily scouting the web for pornography, and the other 10% uploading tedious photo albums onto Facebook. ( The kind of albums I'm talking about contain snaps of bland urban landscapes and occasional picture of a dead fox.) Watching TV always trumps any experience of 'nature' within English suburbs.


I would much rather spend a damp Tuesday evening watching a vintage episode of Crystal Maze than take a walk through Catford's Mountsfield Park. No one's going to try and show me their cock on the Crystal Maze (unless you can get hold of footage from the infamous secret episode; which apparently includes O'Brien absolutely KILLING the Aztec zone). No, I'm afraid examples of nature found in a municipal setting can jog on. I have Sky+, and I'm not afraid to use it.