Victorian values

Modern life often consists of households sitting around watching the telly together - think The Royle Family - and although The Beaver enjoy nothing more than a damn good LA Ink marathon, we don't actually watch much telly over here. This is in no small part due to the fact that North American TV sucks donkey balls. You can easily have 50 channels of absolute rubbish that you wouldn't watch unless you were forced at gunpoint and, should you find yourself in such a situation, you can literally feel your brain dropping an IQ point for every minute you endure it. Clichéd police nonsense, for the most part, with an ad break every 3 1/2 minutes.*

Now, however, our telly has stopped working. I put in on a few days ago, only to hear a loud bang a few minutes later. The picture and sound disappeared to be replaced with a blank screen and loud electrical hum, which was actually an improvement on the show we were watching. So nowadays we feel a little like a Victorian family, sat around the kitchen or living room of an evening, listening to music (from a iPod rather than a gramaphone, but that's possibly splitting hairs), with our latest crochet or knitting on our laps, chatting amiable and swapping stories of our respective countries, hobbies or, more often than not, travelling tales. Much much better than Canadian television, and far more likely to enrich our lives.

*The only programme that Laura & I try never to miss is Sit and Be Fit, an exercise programme for the elderly and infirm, from which we have devised most of our kickass dance moves. 'Moving the Water' and 'Spider on a Mirror' are two of our favourites.