We bring you live pictures.

I went to several fancy dress parties as a child where the wittiest, most up-to-date outfit was a cardboard box with a squared-off rectangular hole in the front and two bottle caps stuck to the side.  This item, worn on the head, transformed the wearer instantly into the latest bit of stunning electronic gadgetry to become available to the middle classes, or, with the addition of a hire-purchase agreement, (a new invention that allowed you to own things you had not completely paid for), even the working classes.  Did you guess what it was boys and girls?  Shall I show you just the corner of it?  There, can you see now?  Yes!  It’s a television set.  Did you guess that it was?  Did you?  How clever of you, when you could only see a bit of the picture.

Having previously Listened With Mother I was upgraded to Watch With Mother and bought into Andy Pandy, Rag Tag and Bobtail, Muffin the Mule and all the other puppets that were the mainstay of children’s entertainment hook, line and sinker.  Why there was never a programme called Hook Line and Sinker, starring a fish, a boat and a worm, I cannot say, a major cultural opportunity was missed there I feel.  I embraced the whole Kit and Caboodle (again, the glories of yesterweren’t) and evinced a passion for the box in the corner that never waned.  My personal favourite was Picture Book.  In this inspiring show a very pretty lady, who was Robin Hood’s girlfriend on Sunday teatime (Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the Glen, Robin Hood Robin Hood and his band of Men, Feared by the bad, Loved by the good, Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood) (that Robin Hood in case you were wondering) showed us a  book. Not really a complex idea.  At all.  What Maid Marion had, apart from a gamine haircut and a cute turned up nose, was a zig zag picture book. Not what you’d call high tech, it was a bit of cardboard with pictures on both sides, folded.  Sometimes she would go through it straight:  ‘Do you know what this black and white animal is, children?’  I sat on my tuffet in despair at my own ignorance, not helped by the fact that all the animals were black and white because colour television hadn’t been invented.  Gently Maid Marion leaned into camera and with her perfectly shaped lips and their perfectly grey lipstick vouchsafed the information with a perfectly judged amount of surprise: ‘It’s a badger!’  I rolled off my tuffet in paroxysms of delight.  A badger!  A badger!  How flipping fantastic!  A wonderful badger!  (Never mind that I had no idea what a badger was, the surprise had nothing to do with the information and everything to do with the teller.)  Sometimes she teased, cruelly. ‘Shall I turn the book over this way, boys and girls?  Or shall I turn the page that way?’ she mused coquettishly.  THAT WAY! THAT WAY!  I screamed from the floor.  My concurrence had been assured from the outset when the programme’s necessity in the budget had been argued for, the content and execution planned and the performance properly rehearsed.

Television subsequently has been a bit of a disappointment with the notable exceptions of Peter Scott, Johnny Morris and David Attenborough, who could all show you a badger so you were amazed, delighted and thoroughly shown.  Johnny Morris as the Hot Chestnut Man just stood by a barrow and told you a story.  Peter Scott could entrance you with nothing more than the birds in your garden.  I remember when David Attenborough turned up in colour.  My grandmother had the first colour television for miles around.  When there was a nature programme her lounge was packed to capacity with people all pointing out to each other that the grass was green, the sky blue and all the animals looking incredibly realistic.  ‘Just as if we were there’ we told each other, inaccurately, considering the effect that a sofa bearing six people, teacups and battenburg cake magically transported to A Jungle Clearing In Borneo Just Behind David Attenborough’s Cameraman would have had on the wildlife.  We sat as entranced with his little skinny knees emerging from his huge khaki shorts as we were with the exotic animals but above all things riveted by his ability to engage meaningfully with the camera.  He was and still is the master of narrowcasting, continually demonstrating an unrivalled understanding of the medium and a mastery of the message, based on good old fashioned practise, learning and rehearsal on top of the even more old fashioned idea of knowing what it was you were banging on about in the first place.

In those days the focus was on producing quality information and entertainment.  With the attention on the word ‘quality’ the medium was, properly, treated as an art form.  Although it didn’t always work and the mistakes in live transmission were as cherishable then as they are now, there was always a sense as a viewer that we were setting off in  the right direction, with lofty aims and  a clear sense of purpose.  Though for a very long time there was only one channel (especially in our house: my mother refused to have ITV on the grounds that it was ‘common’, though how she reached this conclusion, never having seen it, I cannot say) there was always something to watch, something you wished you had watched and something you were looking forward to.

I do so wish I could say the same now.  It isn’t just the UK, it’s everywhere. Versions of appalling, cheap, ‘reality’ TV shows, low brow quiz shows, ‘shock’ soaps and intrusive gawping are global.  Unrehearsed tat is as prevalent as rehearsed out-takes.  The quality seems to have left at round about the same time as the money arrived.  When did producers become convinced that good programmes can be made by throwing money around? A belief that if you take a group of strangers and lock them in a small space with hidden cameras in the hope that they will take each other’s clothes off and that will be entertaining, is as misguided as the thought that a large enough number of tone deaf singers or left footed dancers will finally produce at least one talented performance. If you want Shakespeare, the budget that would buy a thousand typewriters and hire a similar number of monkeys would be better spent on one very good playwright and an excellent company of actors. There are one or two good programmes left.  A few properly written, acted and produced comedy shows that are genuinely funny, some history, nature or social programmes that have been thoroughly researched and carefully presented.  Some sport that is engaging, some action that is thrilling; but in the main the sad truth is that the more channels there are, the less there is to watch.  Of course the problem is centred on the inescapable fact that not everyone is a clever juggler, a beautiful singer, a talented actor.  Like other departments of life, such as food and housing, if the quantity goes up the quality goes down.

Perhaps it’s a global plot to get us all off the sofa.  Maybe television is secretly run by piano manufacturers, keen to get us clustered round the old Joanna having a sing song, mayhap the Charades Corporation is at the helm, could be the Cutting A Row Of Joined Up Boys and Girls Out Of One Strip Of Paper Cleverly, With Ordinary Household Scissors Group is behind it all.

Or perhaps we’re so used to sitting on our backsides gawping there’s no one left with the wit to show us a bit of cardboard, folded, with pictures on both sides anymore.  Are we spoiled, or deprived?  One thing is for sure, the Internet is now at a similar stage, (with the exception of the vast dragging weight of pornographic content) to television just about the time it went to colour.  We should fight for the quality.  We must develop and keep in mind a clear purpose and direction.  This is the communications revolution.  All revolutions generate casualties.  We must make sure that our idealism, sense of purpose and intention to share, inform and help each other are not among them.  Our job as consumers is to make the choice.

For many years I wrote for hobby magazines and never deviated from the advice to choose quality when shopping around.  With quality comes something of substance and lasting value for money.  If you choose quality you are actually getting something for your hard earned.  The same is true of all that is available on the Internet, even if the cost is to the service provider and not to the sites to which you surf.  Your non patronage is almost more important than your patronage.  You decide what will wither and die from lack of interest and what will blossom and flourish with attention.

In a real sense we have grown up and taken control of the remote control.  No one can tell us what to watch.  Before us is the example of television.  Round the world we can see what happens in samples of total governmental control and the opposite, total commercial control.  Use of the Internet and advancing technology are going to put us, ordinary people, in control as never before.  By our choices we shape the future.  I hope it will be humanitarian, altruistic and uplifting.  Let us make it so. 

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