I sometimes wonder if I watch a lot of television or not. I don’t in particular think that I do, but haven’t a clue as to whom I am comparing myself to ( or should that be ‘with ‘? ). I like to watch a movie on Friday and Saturday night, and during the week, to be sociable, I usually sit with The Father for a while, unless sports are on and then I go to the kitchen. Sports are on quite often.
Usually, I’ll watch about an hour of TV, usually something on BBC. If nothing else is on, I’ll watch one of their cooking shows. I always marvel at how fast and uncomplicated things look on a BBC cooking show. I always tell myself that I must get the recipe the next day, at their site. But I never do.
Next up on the type of BBC shows that I will stay downstairs for are those ‘change your house’ ones. I like those fine. Let’s see, there is the one where friends change a room in someone else’s house. I like seeing the interior of other people’s homes, I like all of those handy-dandy oh-so-creative ideas that the designers come up with, but most of all, I suppose that I am waiting for the day when someone’s mouth is saying ‘Oh ! How lovely! I simply adore it ! ‘ while their eyes are saying ‘Oh God, make it go away and I’ll never ask you for another thing in my entire life. ‘
I liked ‘The Life Laundry ‘. It comforted me to see people with homes messier than my own, I liked seeing all of those treasures and bits of ’someday I might need / fix / use its ‘. Then I caught a few episodes of a show devoted to DIY nightmares. One can imagine why that one caught my fancy.
All of these shows were viewed over a number of years. In fact, another one that I liked was 2 or three years ago, a look behind the scenes of a ’stately home ‘. I can imagine that maintenance is expensive, that it is hard to keep one of those monoliths rolling along. I enjoyed eavesdropping on the personnel, listening to the somewhat dotty head of the house-hold, wondering where, along the way, the titled lady of the home had lost her American accent.
Are you beginning to catch my drift ?
Let’s see… recently, The Father and I watched a few episodes of a show dedicated to helping people find their ‘dream home in the country ‘. We especially enjoyed it when the happy couple had about as much to spend as we would, should we ever decide to buy a house in the English countryside.
And an episode of a show where two women exchanged families for a week ? two weeks ? My, women can be catty, can’t they ? And really, who cares if the toilet paper mismatches the wallpaper for a few rolls ?
When I do watch TV, I tend to watch ‘reality shows ‘. Not the ‘eat-live-cockroaches-and make-a- million-bucks’ sort, but reality shows none the less. This doesn’t really surprise me, I grew up in a household littered with copies of ‘Photoplay’ magazine, not to mention Bucky’s secret stash of ‘True Detective’s. Since childhood, I have wondered what a baked potato served with sour cream and caviar would taste like, after having read in some rag that that was Jackie O’s favorite lunch. I like gossip, I always have. It’s not a trait to be proud of, but it is one that I have. A good ‘Did you know…’ can, at times, make my day.
Knowing that I have this flaw in my character ( all right, I’ll go even further and confess that I have everything that Anne Rule has ever written. So many, that last-whenever-it-was, when The Father and I were sorting out our books, he asked me – after handing over the umpteenth A. Rule book – ‘Haven’t you figured out how to kill me yet ? ‘) made me wonder if that same nosiness, love of gossip that leads me to watch these sorts of shows and read those sorts of books had led me to reading blogs. Were blogs- in particular ones like mine, sans many links- simply another aspect of the reality genre ? Not from the writers chair, but the reader’s ?
I think that they are. I like the glimpses given into someone else’s life. I smile when I read that someone else has had their remote control destroyed by the dog. This doesn’t mean that I view the places that I go to a mere entertainment, no, I come to like and at times to worry and fuss about the people behind some of the blogs I read . But still, many times the actual content is their life, I know, not all of it, but still…
Having said all of that, I shall now change sides and state that I am also aware that many people are using blogs to hone their writing skills. So am I being entertained by their lives or their ability to tell a tale ?
Sla m’dood.
