THERE was a television programme some, years ago called Badger Watch, which I thought was marginally less entertaining than looking at paint dry. You sat looking your screen while a huge camera and lights into a badger's lair or set or whatever it was - its home anyway. And then either it came out and blinked you or it didn't, and it was all live so this made it exciting.
I made the mistake of mentioning it to three people, all of whom said it was the best thing on television since the medium began, and they were sick with anticipation waiting for the next Badger Watch that evening and felt the hours crawling until they could see what happened that night.
It was yet another example of being out of step. I like furry black and white things with four legs as much as the next person, but ... spend my time watching in case one came out? Well please.
Possibly it's the word Watch at the end of it that does it. There's a sort of bossy urgency and righteousness about it that I don't like.
It implies that good ecological people would somehow be making the planet better by watching poor unfortunate badgers who don't have a clue that they are being observed. I don't buy that. These programmes were quite late at night there could have been drunken couch potatoes watching blearily, people who wouldn't know if the badger came out and did a hornpipe.
But they are somehow dignified by the word Watch. In a way they wouldn't be at all if it were called something like Peep, or Spy. And I know I have become less hostile to AA Road Watch since last week when I listened to all its virtues and heard staggering tales of its popularity. And I now believe that they do go in there and listen to real information and relay it instead of giving inspired guesses from their beds - which was what I had thought they were doing. But it's still a bit ponderous, this whole Watch bit, as if they were watching our roads for us like knights.
I don't like the name of Neighbourhood Watch, either. I like the whole essence of it, and people looking out for each others good and keeping an eye on other people's property. But again the whole title of it has confused people and made them arrogant.
If you are a dedicated Watcher there's no end to the liberties you can take. Mr Gloom was constantly to be found staring in our window in London, his huge mournful muzzled dog at the ready. I couldn't actually pull the curtain and close him out, and if I were to come out casually as it were pretending to go to the dustbin he would shake his head sadly and say that if it weren't for Neighbourhood Watch we wouldn't have a stick of furniture left in that house, to leave all those bottles on.
And there's a woman in Dublin, a heat seeking missile who attracts all the most unlikely and unreliable men who let their heads over the parapet. Anyway, she says that - however unsatisfactory and transitory her emotional life has been in the past - now, since a vigorous Neighbourhood Watch has evolved in her area, things have gone from bad to worse.
She might be giving a sort of squelchy kiss goodbye to someone in a taxi, or be in the much more likely scenario of being about to invite someone in for a nightcap when a huge torch would flash in her face and that of her companion. After much too long a pause, someone would say sorry but they were only part of Neighbourhood Watch.
It might be added that this woman is a bad neighbour - she wouldn't notice if furniture vans emptied every house in her road.
I told her I was only delighted that people should look out for my good, and she said that was all very well for me - middle aged, settled person that I am, with no adventures in the present and very few in the past from what was reported - so what would I care about people who had taken on the role of vigilantes being driven over the top by the whole concept of "watching" at all.
Then there's Baywatch of course. Deeply silly to pretend that those people are watching the ocean or the currents or the tides. We know only too well what they are watching. But they are terribly important and worthy because of their title, which has lifted them right out of total sleaze. If you are "watching" something you are one of the good guys.
Last week I was at a party where a woman said she was listening to me but she hoped I wouldn't mind if she didn't look at me as we spoke.
This was a bit depressing to be honest. I wasn't going to take her by the throat and say that she was no oil painting either, but it would have been a bit counterproductive to burst into tears and leave either - I had only been there 10 minutes.
I was going to ask if it would be better if I put a Supervalu bag over my head with slits cut in it. But then I thought that sounded somehow defensive. So I looked at her foolishly, hoping there "might be some explanation.
"I have to watch my husband, you see. If he sees that I'm watching then he won't do anything too silly with that ludicrous girl he's dancing with." It seemed such a barking course of action that I wondered could she be serious, but she was.
Very serious. As her husband and the ludicrous girl swooped around dancing to I've Got Friends In Low Places, we both watched them so menacingly it was amazing that they actually stayed upright on the floor.
There was a buffet supper and the woman wanted to go and help herself before the salmon was gone. But she couldn't leave her post.
"I'll watch if you like," I said. And so I watched and watched. Watched a couple I didn't know as they dipped and swayed together. Then I wondered whether they ought to invent something called Spouse Watch, for people who aren't too sure of their partners. You could set up branches of it all over the place, people with gimlet eyes spoiling their every dance, drink, laugh and conversation.
Unwisely I told her about it. Those in Spouse Watch could hold their hands to their eyes pretending to be binoculars, and follow the potentially erring partner or friend's partner around the room.
Beware of irony. She thought this was a great idea. A truly great idea in fact.
But a joke, I explained. Not at all, the most sensible thing she had ever heard. All over the country Spouse Watches could start up. It would take off like wildfire.
She told one or two chosen friends that night, and they came and congratulated me. It could, they agreed generously, be across the board. Men could be a part of Spouse Watch too. Often they had roving partners too often, it was agreed.
So there it goes, a new movement is born. Spouse Watch has started. Because of its name it considers itself virtuous rather than intrusive or, jealous.
From now on, when you are having a good time look around, there will be people with their fists rolled up at their eyes.
You have been warned.