Swandives

I love my tele. Luurrve it, I tells ya. Doesn’t have to be high brow, or even of terribly good quality - schlock TV, like music, is a wickedly wonderful social commentary that should never be underestimated. But us TV junkies have our limits; a few pet hates that will move us to action despite our addiction to the box.

This week I signed up for a workshop in presentation skills because, frankly, I’d rather eat styrofoam than stand up and give a speech. The irony is that it’s not the speaking itself that I loathe, it’s the worrying beforehand. I once had to give a speech at my godmother’s birthday and followed a performance by the utterly brilliant Toni Lamond - and as far as I’m concerned, if I can do that, I can do anything. But I’m hardly a pro and I have a lot to learn so I thought, yeah, a workshop sounds tops.

It was a complete disaster. Contrary to what my husband will tell you, I am not a performer. And I came away from the day feeling like I was crap and useless and could never again talk about anything - which of course is complete bollocks. Anyway, during the course of the day we had to give a presentation about a topic with about 45 minutes of preparation. Choosing a topic is hard enough. In the end I decided to rant about how I hate it when TV stations chop and change my fave shows with no apparent care for viewers. And it turns out I’m not alone - Peter Mattessi evidently feels the same way, as he wrote in Crikey today. Actually, his rant is a lead into why he is watching The Wire. Somebody introduced me to this show in much the same way as Peter a few months ago and I couldn’t agree more.

All this is by the by, you know. What has really got my goat right now is the utterly blatant and completely annoying house ad Channel 9 foisted upon me last night while I was watching Moonlight. Yes, the show is still on at 9.30pm - yay! I was beginning to think that perhaps I had unfairly maligned the network that sickeningly ‘hearts’ TV when it came up with this little gem - an ad for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicals across the bottom of the screen. It’s a static image that sits beside the channel logo. And for a show like Moonlight, which is largely set at night, a white logo (even a transparent one) is infuriatingly obvious. I’m moved to complain - which seems to involve jumping through several hoops acccording to Free TV. You can’t send an email - you must “post or fax your complaint to the relevant body”. Are you kidding? This is 2008 we’re talking about here. Email is soooo 1990s and even that’s not an option. Deliberate perhaps? And stations wonder why people are switching off in droves. D’uh!