I’m getting rather fed up with the dominance of sport on TV at present and know that most visitors to this site are unlikely to sympathise but I want my telly back! writes blogger Charlie Cashdan.
Last week, I settled in front of the telly with my TV dinner and my little brain buzzing away unable to shut down after a long day at work, really looking forward to Eastenders and a little absorbing escapism. But no, sports fans insistent on pushing their hobby on the rest of the nation had won a victory and displaced Eastenders from the schedules to make way for a Euro 08 match. England isn’t even in the contest!
This didn’t happen just once but twice! And for those of us who hate Big Brother too, it was a pretty disappointing telly week. On Sunday I was forced to watch Taggart, not ideal Sunday night viewing with all it’s murders, torture and such, because footie was on BBC One, BB on Four, naff film on Five and I can’t get reception on Two in the bedroom!
We’ve also had athletics, Ascot, cricket and now Wimbledon! I don’t care, I’m not interested and I’ve had enough!
Every time my husband has Radio Five Live on all they ever seem to talk about is sport, hours at a time as if the world depended on it, forget the terrible atrocities in Zimbabwe and other really important issues!
The Wimbledon slogan this year is ‘Greatness awaits’ what nonsense! Nelson Mandela is great, not Nadal waving his racket around looking miserable and earning millions for the pleasure.
We have to stop hero worshiping these people, particularly footballers with their ridiculous salaries whoss promiscuous partying ways should not be worthy of the absolute adulation fans give them, let alone all this air time.
The BBC breakfast news has been strangely taken over by sport of late so I can’t even escape from it in the morning schedules either!
They did loads of Ascot stuff, presenting the weather from there, wearing silly outfits, features on the catering, people’s hats etc. Now they are doing the same with Wimbledon, every morning!
In addition to all this madness, the business presenter is also now doing a feature every morning this week following some ridicous ‘boys with big toys’ power boat race all around the UK.
All this is on top of their usual sports reporting so out of the hour’s worth I watch every morning at least half an hour is given over to sport!
I couldn’t be less interested in the power boat race, Wimbledon bores me to tears and I think football just takes the mess out of it’s loyal devoted fans charging a fortune for season tickets, the kit, the merchandise and employing these silly conceited players with no attachment to the areas they play for, no local background and so much money that they are completely out of touch with their own fans.
Years ago, if you played for Wolves, you probably came from the area and had grown up loving the team. You worked really hard, drank in the local pubs with all your fans and earned an honest wage doing what you did out of love for the team and game. I know because my granddad played in the reserves (so my mom always told me but I suspect he was just really good mates with the team and they let him kick a ball around with them every weekend) and my mom’s tales of how local football was years ago are a world apart from today’s global industry.
In my opinion, sport separates families. How many times in my own household has football been on and my eldest stepson has sat in the living room glued to the telly with his dad, while I sit in the bedroom watching something else and the youngest plays in his room?
I hear this time and time again from moms who feel that the living room is a no-go zone for them when sport is on putting families in different parts of the house depending on their tolerance for sport. With all the abundance of it messing up the schedules at the moment, I’m guessing families are more divided than ever!
Agree with Charlie? Post your comments below.
6 Comments
I can’t believe what I am reading…its shocking to read that your lives evolve around the TV. Why not just try turning it off and focus on your family instead and do things together.
How can you live with the TV being the main focus in your lives??
Amazing!!!
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Do give a thought to the disabled or elderly who cannot go out, they have no choice but to rely on t.v. and radio (which is also dominated by sport) not everyone is lucky enough to have the choice to go out like you or I ‘Niff’.
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Did she say she was disabled??? NO!!!!
I actually am a carer and a very sympathetic person so I am not stupid. This woman has children and from reading this she doesn’t play with them. I have elderly and disabled grandparents and they do not watch the tv like this woman. They talk, read and play games.
So Samantha do not judge me before knowing the facts!!! This person wanted people to write or she wouldn’t have done this blog. I feel sorry that her main focus is not on her family but on the tv
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I actually meant to put this quote in she put
“while I sit in the bedroom watching something else and the youngest plays in his room?”
So she is watching tv in her bedroom and that poor child is left on his own playing in his room, what sort of a life is that for a child if the parent can’t be bothered with him, unbelievable!!!!
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Gosh! Well that’s me put in my place hasn’t it! Had no idea I was such a terrible stepparent, clearly must raise my game! Do feel I need to defend myself a bit here though.
My life does not revolve around the TV and it certainly isn’t the focus of my life, with two step-kids every other weekend and holidays, my husband, a very demanding full time job, a house to clean, two aging parents and a novel to write, TV is my little luxury if I ever get a moment! I enjoy the early morning news that I have on in the background while I get ready for work and have watched Eastenders since I was a child but it’s the only soap I watch. I never watch TV in the day except for breakfast news.
Being a stepparent has been the biggest challenge of my life and I probably don’t always get it right. I grew up an only child in a very small family so had no experience of children whatsoever until they came into my life, two chatty, intelligent, energetic and articulate boys who I love to bits. When they come to us we devote the whole weekend to them, and it was at my insistence that we now always eat as a family around the table (something they never do with their mom at home), me that introduced painting, drawing, crafts, badminton, swimming, ice skating, kite flying, hollowing out pumpkins for Halloween, reading stories together doing silly voices and actions, bike ridding, my God I’ve tried! Those weekends we have them I don’t work on the novel, don’t see my parents or friends, don’t do housework until they have gone home, I try to be fun and entertaining all day but find it so draining because I’m not used to it and haven’t had them from birth. They were seven and eleven when I met my husband.
It’s just that sometimes (and to be honest it doesn’t happen very often in my family but happens every Saturday in some families I know of) if there is lots of sport on TV my husband and teenage stepson sit there transfixed in front of the telly because they both love certain sports, particularly rugby, and it means we can’t play together or go out.
The ten year old doesn’t like to admit that he isn’t interested because he pretends to love sport too, but in reality gets bored. I don’t want to sit and watch it either so we sit in the dining room doing painting or crafts but the brothers are so close that they don’t really like to be apart and the flickering glow of the telly and shouts from dad and Bro draw him away from me.
He sits with them and then gets bored but because he’s now in a telly mood, slopes off to his room to watch cartoons, which he adores (I’ve tried to ban them downstairs and during the day but both have failed). It’s not that I can’t be bothered with him, but he’s at that age where sometimes he can’t be bothered with us and I let him have that space. I carry on painting but if he doesn’t come back, I refuse to watch those weird Japanese cartoons with him and can’t stand sport so land up watching telly on my own upstairs for a little while, not all night!
He’s not a poor child left on his own, he’s turning teenager and just wants to be in his den having a chill out after a busy day of bike rides, long walks, painting etc. Once the sports match finishes, we are all back together again. I don’t think this makes me a disgusting parent, I was just the same at his age and wish my mom could have understood and given me space instead of constantly coming into my room offering endless cups of tea like Mrs Doyle from Father Ted!!
This has only happened a handful of times in my family but I know families where every weekend father and son watch and play sport all Saturday leaving mom and daughter to their own devices and splitting the family. Have you ever tried getting a teenage boy to go out and play with you when a rugby or footie final is on? Even Supernanny couldn’t achieve that one let alone a novice step mom.
I’ve tried to ban all TV during the day but my husband enjoys Sky Sports and loves watching it and dissecting it with his eldest son. What can I do? Fortunately this doesn’t happen that often and we still go out and play together lots and my husband does put his family first and is a fantastic hands-on Dad, but I know so many men that live for sport and are always putting it first.
I really hoped lots of women who are married to such men would write in. Those who loose sons and husbands every Saturday to watching or playing sport and also feel sport divides and interrupts family life. I just thought my blog would prompt a debate to counteract all the devoted sports fans that use this site, and put across a different point of view. I am not a sports fan and would much rather be doing things as a family but that’s not always possible with a teenage boy and sport on TV!
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Charlie,
I am so glad that you have clarified certain points. You have to admit that reading your blog made you out to be a tv mad family, lol.
From my point of view reading that horrified me, I am a widow, I had one baby and was pregnant when my hubby was killed on active duty in 1984, so as you can see my family has always come first and reading that really shocked me.
I commend you on taking on step children, it must be hard especially when they are so old.
Perhaps a bit more background information in future might help, lol.
Enjoy life to the full life is too short as I know.
Kind regards
Niff
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