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One of the many things that makes the 2020s better than the 1970s/80s is that there is more than one place to watch TV. So many of my childhood days were ruined by my mum wanting to watch (a repeat of) Brideshead Revisited rather than the far more culturally important comedy show Al Fresco (for example). There was no way to catch up with my missed TV show and at that point we didn’t have a video. If you missed an episode of Blake’s 7 and the Goodies because some kind of storm had taken out the transmitter, then you basically were never going to see those shows again (I now own all the Goodies on DVD but have no idea which one I missed and I am not ploughing through the whole thing to find out).
Of course in the 1980s the video player turned up and we probably got a second TV set, but it’s nothing compared to nowadays. This morning the kids watched some childish programme on Netflix, whilst I (ostensibly looking after them) watch The Detectorists Christmas (though really Easter) special on my laptop, wearing my headphones. We were in the same room, watching the things we wanted to at a time that we had chosen. Suck on that 1979.
The Detectorists is, as you know, a lovely show of the kind that I’d very much like to have had the opportunity to get on TV (and I’d more or less have chosen the same subject, though my closest one was about archaeologists, where detectorists would have been the bad guys. But Mackenzie Crook has done a fabulous job of this and my only criticisms would be that there should be loads more episodes and maybe they should be less eventful (in terms of discoveries). But whilst these particularly treasure hunters have found more than their fair share of treasure and manage to hit on the holy grail of archaeology in this episode, it’s nicely tongue in cheek and it’s fair enough that they go for more interesting finds. So basically I’m saying if I was at the helm I’d make it a lot more boring. Which probably isn’t a note anyone wants to hear. But I’d be happy to just hear the detectorists chatting to each other for half an hour a week for the rest of my life.
Very enjoyable though (and I liked the nicely judged and subtle Alice Roberts gag) and fittingly I watched the last 15 minutes in a field as I walked my dog. Maybe one day there will be a sitcom about stone clearers. The only thing you can be certain of is that I won’t be the one writing it.
I thought the Ghosts and Motherland Christmas specials were top drawer too, so well done to the BBC and suck on that people who think comedy isn’t as good as it was in the 70s/80s. Not only is it better, but you can actually watch it now.
We took an afternoon walk up the hill and back through the woods. I mentioned that loads of the planets were going to be visible to the naked eye tonight, which led to about two hours of Uranus jokes from Phoebe. Which to be honest, wasn’t quite enough Uranus jokes for my liking.
It was our first family walk for a little while and the first time that I think the kids have done a long walk without one of them needing to be carried and we walked four kilometres in less than 100 minutes which was pretty good going.
It was a really fun family day (apart from the bit where we sat in the same room watching different TV shows) and Catie and I have nearly recovered from the two Christmases we had to go through. We went out for a family meal and the kids behaved very well in a nice restaurant (we were in so early there were no other diners for most of it) and the only down side was that the jug of tap water we got smelled and tasted of TCP (but I was brave enough to ask to get a non-detergent tasting beverage. Basically all I ask of water is that it tastes of nothing.
We got the kids to bed late. And we were not far behind them.
