A minor but treasured harbinger of Christmas: the arrival of the Radio Times double issue. Comment on the Christmas schedules can wait for a Do You See post, but I still felt the same warm feeling buying a copy this lunchtime. This despite the fact that I’m going to be out most evenings between now and Christmas and any spare time will be spent watching videos or tooling about online.
The meat of the matter was always the family’s divvying up their TV viewing so as to “avoid” arguments – an S or D for Mum and Dad, then a handful of judicious teenage Ts for whatever I wanted to watch and a tide of over-ambitious As from a goggle-eyed Al. For some reason I always thought each holday would be the year when I would watch lots of Great Movies, all on at 3 AM, none ever caught. The single programme I knew was a must must must see would clash with an opera
discreetly S-branded, cue tantrums, “But you don’t even LIKE opera!” and watching it sulkily upstairs chewing on an ashen mince pie. One year Al dutifully put an A next to every morning’s Breakfast TV showing of Garfield.
Wonderful days, now gone. “There’s nothing on the box this year”, I can mutter, secretly grateful that I don’t have to make time for it.