Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Billy and Pamela - A Love Story

My New Year's resolution was to give up TV for the whole of 2012. Secretly, I am hoping that by the time 2013 comes along, I will no longer need to make the resolution as I will have severed that tie.
I will be wickering baskets, or rugging rags or macheting papier or (Heaven help us) talking to the kids or even breaking the seal on the hoover - who knows?
My home is my lobster.
That Nobel Prize-winning novel will be with the publisher, my band will be topping the charts just as it enters the Guinness book of Record for being Oldest Band Ever to be Knitted down to its Underpants!

So, with my new found hours of evening freedom, I fired up the ol' iplayer!
Yes! A loophole!

To be fair, I was going to listen to a Radio 4 play that I missed on Saturday. It starred two of my all time favourite men; Billy Connolly and Brian Cox. I'm a teensy bit in love with them both. It's the accent (which is weird since I have the same one) the openness and the kindly demeanour. I find honesty and straight talking very attractive. And jings, do they make me laugh !

However, the iplayer went on a circuitous route and promoted 'Billy Connolly on other networks' which led me(I am very glad to say) to 4OD's 'Shrink Rap' where Pamela Stevenson - addressed her husband as though he were in a therapy session. When he became emotional about his experiences, you could plainly see how much pain it caused her and hear how proud she was of him.
 I won't go into it too much as my Bob Geldof  fawning gush-fest was just plain embarrassing for us all , but what I really saw was that she loves him on a level that most of us will never reach. Here is a marriage that really works. What was amazing was that, as she was asking him questions, his answers often took her completely by surprise .These were stories/feelings/experiences she was hearing for the first time and yet they've been together for, what? 30 years?
They live without the need to be in each other's pockets.
Trust? That was a stranger to my marriage.
 How lucky they are to have found each other. I'm a bit jealous.
So, I watched but didn't inhale and I think that the terms of my resolution allow that because
a) technically speaking it was not a TV
b)I was in no way comfy whilst watching it
c) I am a part-time Buddhist and they are incapable of cheating.

Everyone knows that.







7 comments:

  1. "I am a part-time Buddhist and they are incapable of cheating."

    That is sooooooo going into my repertoire as of right now!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Robbie,I offer you without any sense of loss, my wisdom which shines like a pilchard in the torments of Samsara. Take it and be comforted.:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Another parallel as I don't watch telly either.

    I DO have TV's in the house but the ariel to the monster, all singing all dancing 42" in the front room doesnt work (it's great for DVD's though) and although I do have one in my bedroom - kindly brought to me by a freind after I'd said that I didn't have one in my bedroom because I didn't want one (slight confusion there I think!) but I've never turned it on and I think the bloody cat my have eaten the remote.

    I do catch up on iplayer occasionally though (great loophole). xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jolly good! This means I'll be tall and slim soon

    ReplyDelete
  5. I think I'd find the TV diet harder than my nil junk by mouth diet. I am actually typing with some sports news on. I'm not watching it but I am comforted by it's presence - Oh Geez I need to get a life!

    ReplyDelete
  6. plenty time for a life once your child has had your best years, at least that's what I am hoping for myself!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I lived without a TV for about four years in my 20s. Couldn't afford one on my uni budget and wasn't home to watch it either. I spent plenty of time at the movies though. Does that count? I admire you for this. I think we could all learn to watch it less x

    ReplyDelete