Last week my wife and I took one of our regular trips to York with the
intention of visiting our youngest daughter, who is attending university in
that fine city.
I say that she is attending this honoured place of learning without any
real evidence of this being true.
Back in the days of primary school we parents were almost completely
connected to the education process; letters from teachers, parent’s
evenings, assemblies all added to this connection.
By the time your children start to become embarrassed by your every move
they are protected by the high school years.
Then, before you can get used to sight of their first piercings, your
offspring are heading towards adulthood.
If it weren’t for the regular depletions from your bank balance and the
occasional Facebook messages you wouldn’t really know that university
exists.
On this recent trip our stated agenda was to visit our daughter and have a
spot of lunch. Not once was I told that we would spend a good amount of our
time cleaning her room and repairing various broken items.
Not that I resent this; I tend to be grateful for any contact with our
daughters even if I am valued by my usefulness.
What I mind is our continual pretence that we are making the forty-mile
journey merely for lunch.
As we began to wade through several months’ worth of student debris I
couldn’t help notice that although the floor was completely covered,
neither the waste bin nor the wash basket contained any items.
I commented that these containers resembled by bank account but mum and
daughter we enjoying putting clothes in the wardrobe. I have occasionally
tried this myself but I can’t say that I understand the thrill.
I think my enjoyment has been somewhat quashed by the constant comments
offered by my bride. It seems that you cannot count it as a successful
exercise if all the hangers are not placed on the rail facing the same way.
I tried to ask why this was important but my wife answered in her customary
fashion ‘If you don’t know then I cant explain it’.
I have a suspicion that it might be woman code for ‘I don’t really know
but I wont admit it’.
Either way, my youngest daughter and my bride of nearly thirty years, both
seemed to understand the rules of engagement without need for explanation.
Once the room was good enough to be photographed, and the said pic was
uploaded to Facebook, we headed off for lunch.
Before long my wife and I were reminiscing about our own student days and
Mrs Molineaux’s youngest commented about the similarities with her
experiences.
Our parents would often ask us about our studies and we would offer only
monosyllabic replies; much as our daughters have done to us.
‘Did you keep your rooms tidy’ our precious offspring enquired. We laughed
and then I pointed out that in comparison she was living in relative
luxury.
My waste bin was a plastic shopping bag and I used a pillowcase to hold my
washing. I confess that I did occasionally tidy up if things became too
untidy.
‘You have more motivation to clean your room’ Mrs M informed our daughter
‘So that the Facebook photograph looks good’.
Student Waste Binb
The Genetic Factor
Is anyone else a bit fed up of TV presenters telling us that the future of
their contestants depends on us? Whether it is singing wannabees or
celebrity dancers it seems that they just cannot manage without us.
This appears somewhat ironic given the fact that they present us with a
panel of experts all vying to give us their opinions.
‘If you don’t want your favourite to leave then pick up the phone now’ the
presenter informs the audience presuming that a) We have a favourite and b)
that we care enough to spend our money in order to secure their future.
Perhaps if they had a ‘none of the above’ option I might be more tempted
to take up the responsibility that they so freely offer me.
I expressed this thought to Mrs M and she suggested that I was looking at
the whole thing a little too negatively. She even intimated that I might
feel more at home watching Grumpy Old Men.
Perhaps she has a point but I can’t help feeling that these programmes
bring out the worst in me.
I wonder how long it will be before newscasters start asking us to vote on
which headlines they cover. Or when weather reporters start running a
phone-in competition so that we can decide the kind of weather we should
have.
This all sits well with the media obsession of getting the public’s
opinion on virtual every subject you can name. They start by asking a few
well-educated professionals to start the debate rolling. Then before you
know it they are on the streets to ask Doris from Bolton what she thinks
about genetic modification.
Not that people christened Doris, nor indeed the residents of Bolton,
have the right to speak; it’s just that I am not sure whether either label
qualifies you to have a useful viewpoint on multi cellular organisms.
Perhaps the future of genetic engineering is more important than the X
Factor (although you wouldn’t know that from the viewing figures) but I
don’t really care what Doris thinks about either and I am quite sure that
my thoughts are equally useless in such things.
I expressed this opinion to Mrs M and she replied ‘You are making the huge
assumption that Doris doesn’t have a PHD in such matters or that she
doesn’t work as a record producer.’
I detected that she was offering a little too much sarcasm so I explained
to her why she was missing the point but she was too busy listening to
Simon Cowell destroy another young hopefuls dreams.
If you want my unqualified opinion, if it wasn’t for genetics the X Factor
wouldn’t be nearly as popular as it is.
Coming Up
Mrs M and I are committed telly watchers. We always have been but
especially so when our four daughters were younger and funds were limited.
Once the kids were fast asleep in bed we would hope and pray that there
would be something good to watch for the last hour of the evening before we
collapsed in to bed.
We are not just a family of TV ‘watchers’, we also try to be fully engaged
with the process; commenting on the storylines, arguing about which
contestant is our favourite, and occasionally shouting in the direction of
the screen if we find something to disagree with. This last one is usually
my practice and tends to annoy the other family members but at least I have
stopped throwing things at the TV these days.
Although we had the luxury of a video player back then most of our tapes
were either cartoons or compilations of home movies. Not like today when we
have so much technology available to aid us in our free time.
One of our most favourite of the new inventions is the ability to record
most of our favourite programmes using something called series link.
In addition to the fact that we very rarely miss episodes we are also able
to fast forward past the adverts. This has increasingly brought to our
attention the fact that an hour of TV only contains about forty minutes of
the actually programme.
If this is not bad enough there is the use of a phrase that I have come to
quite literally detest. It is employed in nearly every show and without any
sense of how it affects the viewer’s experience.
The phrase is ‘coming up’.
It is used just before the advert break and seems to suggest that TV
producers have very little confidence in either their product or their
viewers.
They must assume that we will get distracted during the ad break and
forget what we were watching. So they try to tantalise us with snippets of
what is about to happen.
Well I would like to announce to these producers that I am not interested
in what is coming up until it arrives; so stop telling me what I am about
to see.
You might feel my annoyance coming through these words but don’t be too
concerned because my pain has been alleviated by the fact that we can now
fast forward past such nonsense.
Added to this ability to eliminate this TV chaff is the fact that I can
increase my engagement with programme by shouting at the screen ‘we are not
interested in what is coming up!’, before pressing the fast forward button
on the remote control.
