I’m sorry but I didn’t watch Andy Burnham on Gogglebox. Nothing personal. It’s just that I don’t watch Gogglebox. Why do I want to watch people sitting on a sofa watching television? It’s the same reason that I don’t watch endless episodes of Love Island, or Big Brother; Celebrity Traitors; or I’m a Celebrity: Get me out of here. Is it just me? I don’t want to watch disgraced former politicians like Matt Hancock being funny. But I did watch 20 minutes of Prince William on the Graham Norton show. Isn’t he tall? And isn’t he a nice guy? While his father is so short? But eventually I got bored and went to the kitchen to do the washing up. For those of us old enough to remember, one of TV’s most cringe making moments was a clip of the late Dennis Healey MP thumping the piano and singing “Maybe it’s Because I’m a Londoner” to a group of pensioners. Was he trying to win votes? It’s because mainstream TV is now so awful that in our house we have taken to watching YouTube
With YouTube, you get entertainment from around the world. You flick through until something catches your eye. Much of it is privately posted, like footage from somebody’s wedding. And aren’t some of them lavish? And most of this World entertainment is so much better than the smug nonsense and endless repeats which we get on our hundreds of Freeview Channels. Why is it all so samey? Is someone trying to dumb us down? Maybe Putin? It doesn’t matter to me that so much of YouTube content is in a different language. You don’t have to speak fluent Italian to enjoy watching Puccini. Plus the fact that Farida, my partner, understands so much of that footage So I might get a running commentary. Not always. I might even pick up a few words of Urdu along the way. Never enough to hold a conversation. And I’m sure that I’m not alone. Like so many British men, I seem to have a mental block when it comes to learning languages. I think it goes back to the French I was taught at secondary school. The thing I most remember from those dismal lessons was that I never actually met anybody who was French. You were more likely to be taught by the woodwork teacher. And I don’t think that anything’s really changed.
