Pass me the Kleenex and do me a favour

Those of you who know me well will remember that I am not generally the greatest telly fan. Indeed when Sam and I moved down under I ran a one woman campaign for a telly free existence, which, needless to say, was fruitless. Sam is shall we say, of a different mindset to me on that one.
Telly to me is a tad like ginger nuts, if it's the house, denial is much tougher. But take in too much and invariably my brian and body turn to sludge and I get filled with self-loathing about the plethora of more nourishing things I should be feasting on.

For those of you thinking 'she wrote about Celebrity Love Island non stop for weeks, she is clearly self-delusional'. I say, you are probably right, but bear in mind I had moved to a new city with a tough job and at first, a very scarce supply of mates. I will concede I've mellowed a little from my 'no telly in the house campaign' era.

My reasons aside from the general slothlessness of telly, for working at not getting too gripped by box, are that my eyes can't take it. See, I have this terrible propensity to cry at just about everything. That program where parents having kid trouble go and see a behaviourist who usually finds it's the other way rounds, kids having trouble with their parents, for example. That program where some mate of Jamie Oliver sets up a free range sausage farm. That program where kids chose a date for their single mums. All these alone saw me reaching for the Kleenex during my Scotland tenure, and they're not even that sad. It used to just be Idol. Idol crying can be justified. It was won by an overweight aboriginal teenage girl with the voice of an oaked angel (Australian), a funky black woman (American) and a nancy pants (UK). This is Ok crying I reckon. Crying about the fact we've come so far that even in places where the right still rule politics, equality is starting to get mainstreamed.

Much better than being moved to tears by a posh sausage farmer. Although he was lovely, and had enviable vision and focus. Then there was his very green welllied girlie who put aside glamour to muck in and get her elbow up a pigs backside.

Today saw the last of my telly for a while. I had put aside a whole weekend day for watching, something I never do, on the basis I really fancied the wimbledon women's final and Live 8. Naturally I now can't see through the small slits that once resembled eyes, I mean if 30% vision weren't enough, an ariel view of my lids is all I am currently afforded. Honestly, without my voice activated computer I wouldn't be telling you this.

Venus Williams, resplendent, gorgeous, battling the voice in her head so obviously, then beating it to join the elite group of Martina, Chris Evert, Billy Jean and Steffi to be one of the few to get 3 or more.
Then those images, the ones that made me weep 20 years ago, accompanied then as now by Drive by the cars. Then they brought that girl out, the one so emacipated at the end of the video, now a beautiful strong woman. I mean, move over Idol, move over pig farmer, the living room was flooded and as Sir Bob intended I was not only sobbing but bloody furious.

Made me think about the funny man, he said he feels like he's done what he set out to do. Good on him. I don't. I feel like there's so much to do, I just need to turn off the telly and get on with it.

So please, if I ever get hooked on some vacuous reality TV show again, will you call me up and remind me of this post?

Many Thanks

Julie x