Old Skool And That.

Deciding to watch some television – for the first time in days – I switch on my ageing CRT widescreen television at the power socket. It promptly explodes. I actually leap away as it dramatically expires.

It really exploded.

I stare at it in the manner of a man who can’t actually believe that anything else in his life could go wrong. It’s been a difficult few weeks. I roll my head on my neck.

Twenty-four hours later and I am delighted. I’ve dragged the old 21” square black television from the cupboard under the stairs, wired all the SCARTs and the FOUR other cables that have no obvious purpose, put the big silver widescreen dead thing back under the stairs without back injury. These CRT things are heavy and I’m no Geoff Capes.

I watch an episode of Cheers in its intended aspect ratio. The colour depth is astonishing, the resolution is astounding. The bass and stereo is amazing.  I switch channels for a while just to see people without horizontally-elongated heads and to hear them as they were meant to be heard on my twenty-year old television.

Everything was fine the way it was. Really. Vinyl was better than CD. Old televisions are better than the new ones. Low-tech is the best.

I turn the television off, deciding instead to spend the evening reading. That’s as low-tech but also as cerebral as it gets.

I turn my Kindle on.