It's a Dad's Life: Children's TV has a lot to answer for. Right now it is providing the inspiration for a whole new world of demands from the elder.
Back in July I got so frustrated with the fuzzy picture and inept customer service from NTL that I swallowed the Sky bait and signed up to the full digital package. The hook was that for the first three months you could avail of a discounted rate of €15 per month. For that, I reasoned, I would benefit from the sports, the missus might enjoy the odd movie and the kids would have a broad array of cartoons to sedate them. Not surprisingly, only the latter has proved correct.
I can barely bring myself to watch Sky Sports. Despite the all-singing, red and blue graphics, the all-dancing interactive options and the exhortations to tune into "Grand Slam Sunday", I can't rid myself of the sense of grime that comes with Sky programming. No matter how it's dressed, you're still just watching football, and usually football you have no interest in, or any need to be watching. Football Asia? Is my life so empty that I require this information? It's football to make you feel bad about yourself.
As for the movies, I think Sky rotates them every six months. These are movies you wouldn't have bothered going to the cinema to see, but Sky will try to ensure you eventually succumb. Ladder 49 anyone? It seems to be on every day, usually preceded by Monster-In-Law. These are movies to make you feel bad about yourself.
But the kids are ecstatic. There are 25 dedicated children's channels and still sometimes that isn't enough. The elder's demand goes like this: "Daddy, will you put on Sky and see if a Barbie movie is on. If not, check for Lilo and Stitch, or Tarzan, or Scooby Doo, or Kim Possible, or Totally Spies." Yes, boss.
God help us if one of these isn't available. Multiplicity of choice makes the denial of immediate gratification a pain of unbearable intensity for this media-savvy five-year-old.
The thing is, I don't mind the children's programmes, it's the ads that do my nut. Back in my pudding bowl haircut youth, I used to tremble with excitement as it became apparent Christmas was approaching due to the proliferation of toy ads on TV. Buckaroo! and Operation seemed so glamorous when they appeared on our screens towards the end of November each year.
Like the kinds of games children were playing in America, where everything was groovy.
Now it's a relentless sales pitch, book-ended by cartoons. The elder has even picked a channel on occasion based on the quality of product it advertises. This love of promotions has also highlighted her strange concept of commercial spirituality.
She has formed the impression that Santa Claus is like some form of rotund, jovial, ever-present deity. As she takes in an ad, if she is particularly enamoured with the toy, she will speak out loud, to no-one in particular: "Santa, will you get me that please?" The first time I noticed this phenomenon I presumed she was talking to me. I replied that a gift might be in the offing at Christmas, if, all year, she played her cards right and followed my instructions on every matter, to the letter. I was dreaming obviously. She shook her head benignly and addressed me like she would her little sister, to explain that it was the man in red she was talking to. He hears everything and He understands all.
We worship our God at the Temple of Sky and offer up our prayers to His representative on Earth in the North Pole. Amen.
