I’ve blogged about the television before, how much electricity it consumes (admittedly not much as it’s a small one), about the brain-dead programming and about reducing its use.
I had thought I was getting somewhere with the Other Half beginning to vaguely entertain the idea of curtailing the already limited television habit even further, while the boys have a firm ration of viewing.
But, I’ve just been tripped at the final hurdle.
The OH’s parents came to visit today and brought an absolute monster of a CRT television with them.
It’s six months old and they don’t want it as they’re getting a big flatscreen so they brought it up to replace our ancient portable TV.
Now, it is a very generous gift and the boys love it to bits (cartoons where the characters are bigger than you!), but I find it intimidating, I can “see” the electricity being devoured by it and it’s changed the whole dynamic of the living room from a people space to a TV space.
I wonder if I dare convert it into a fish tank? Sigh!
This happens in our house all the time. I go out of my way to get solid shampoo, environmentally friendly products etc then the kids come back from their grandparents with armfulls of 2 for 1 offers on hair products and crap food etc.
M who has a different father came back last week with a playstation2 as at her dad’s they had 2?
I’m glad that I’m not the only one that gets anoyed at this sort of thing.
Could the TV not meet with a little accident??
I will be the first to send you a fish Stoney.
If you want/need a TV then all that is necessary is an ordinary size unit. As most of the programming is rubbish it just means that you see the rubbish in an overwhelming fashion.
Give me a good book, or pencil and paper, or some tools or similar activities and someone else can have the TV.
Will you have enough H2O for the fish tank?
It will be 2 years this June since we bundled our old portable off to my parents attic. It has taken almost all that time for those cretins at TV Licencing to believe us. It’s safe to say that neither of us have missed the TV one bit, despite numerous treats/summonses by TV Licencing. We both read more, listen to the radio/music more and even have the occassional conversation.
We do accept offers of DVD loans which we watch on the laptop, who’s screen is exactly the same size at the old TV. It is almost a Friday night event now. At least during the winter.
I bought a Squeezebox (www.slimdevices.com) when I was a ‘Suit’ and it’s certainly made TV-less living much easier. We use it both to play our digital music, but it can also stream the BBC’s ‘listen again’ facility. And it uses significantly less juice than any Magic Lantern, King Size CRT or wee portable…..
To cap it off, the quarterly electricity bill arrived today and all my efforts to curb our use still further have paid off with a further reduction in our useage.
And what happens, we get a giant idiot box that’s bound to undo all that hard work. Grrrr! Wait until I get my consumption meter on to it…
ARGGGG! I loathe big tellys,our middley size one has conked out recently & we have gone back to our 10 year old portable quite happily,it sits high on a shelf,it doesnt *take* over the room at all,even when its on the sound is *lighter* than the one on the previous telly.
Your consumption meter will prove your point,our portable costs around 1p an hour when the bigger one was 2.3p.
I do enjoy television,I do think there are some good programmes on there but I detest it when its on for the sake of having it on,as background noise or *company* agrgg!! put the radio on! There was some item on the news today about telly & kids but I didnt hear it properly,will try & catch it again later.
Our girls are only 19months,if I really need them to be distracted which is needed sometimes! so I can go get logs in or empty the ash etc I put it on,they sit on the sofa & watch a couple of kids programmes on CBeebies(dont get me started on adverts….)soon as I am done it goes off.
Its a special thing to be put on & enjoyed & then off again.
Is there a local organisation that would welcome a donation of a television near you at all? You’d need to carefully word your explanation to your OH’s parents for passing it on though so as not to offend as I agree that it is a generous gift and their hearts I am sure where in the right place.
If having an oversized and frankly ugly television taking up your enture living room is against your values, I think you are well within your rights to keep the ancient portable and give away the new one.
A living room is just that, a room for living… otherwise it would be called the watching-mindless-tv room.
I forgot to say, my OH bought a squeezebox a few years ago too and it is used a lot more than our (modest sized) tv. My little portable radio gets the most use though!