Now for retirement and television. There is no doubt that for many retired people television is something of a Godsend. It wards off the loneliness and fills in those empty hours. Phew, that’s quite a miserable start to this retirement blog. I’ll just say in an effort to be more positive, that with a little imagination and some funding TV could be an even greater asset to the ‘elderly’*.
But, that said and to return to the topic of this blog, my own view, and it will come as no surprise to those of you who count themselves regular readers of this blog, is that television is best served as part of a balanced diet of retirement activities.
And I say this as a retired person who feels he hasn’t quite managed to follow his own sensible advice. I feel we watch rather too much TV. It’s true that what we watch is, I think, fairly well-balanced. We watch documentaries, art, music, history and culture generally. We try and watch a bit of comedy although I have to say we find this more difficult than in the good old days of (mostly) BBC sitcoms. I’ll return to this in a moment.
Crime features more than it should probably and, given we worry about the impact of crime on our lives more than we used to, it’s ironic that we spend so much time watching programmes about it. Of course they are fiction and real crime is err, not. Also strangely we are drawn to Scandi crime – The Killing (way back), The Bridge, Der Pass (not strictly Scandi) and, just started, Beck. Despite, or even because of, the sub titles? Maybe because it’s more exotic than British crime? But probably because it leads on from literary Scandi crime – Jo Nesbo et al. which we’ve both been addicted to in the recent past.
The other bit of that key value, balance, happens because we don’t watch TV all day, although at 3 o’ clock and Escape to the Country, we start too soon. But also balance in that TV is a part of our day that also constitutes, outdoor activity and physical exercise in the form of dog-walking. And also our vineyard activities at certain times of the year.
We have our more intellectual activities, if that is the right word, art for Mrs Summerhouse and music in various forms for me (going strong at the moment and will undoubtedly form the topic for a blog quite soon) and there’s writing this blog itself of course. Some day-time reading (only non-fiction during the day) for both of us. I’m sorry to report that, since the early pandemic days, DIY type activities seem to have dropped off the radar. We spend a bit of our retirement lives travelling to our various properties and, with the odd hotel stay thrown in, this means we get out of the main house a fair amount.
So yes, TV fits in quite well with our other chosen retirement activities, given that 3 or 4 hours a day is probably just an hour too much. We switch off at 7 o’clock and head upstairs to read for the last hour or so of the day, fiction now. So it’s not that end of the day that poses a slight problem but the beginning of our viewing and perhaps the terrible crime of eating our tea / dinner off a tray on our laps. A sin or not? I’m not sure.
This topic for today’s blog, like so much of my blog writing, was prompted by an eleven page article, The BBC at 100, in The Observer this weekend about the future (and past) of the BBC. Described by many as, along with the National Health Service, the aspect of Britain they’re most proud of. I agree and I also agree that this rotten, miserable government of ours is going to finish it off probably because, although they wouldn’t say so, it’s too left wing, code for critical of this rotten, miserable government ‘we’ elected. If you read this blog for a balanced view of our politics then you’re possibly reading the wrong retirement blog.
Anyway, The Observer asked the people from whom it sought their opinions of the BBC which was their favourite programme of all time, TV and radio. Which of course led me to consider which were mine (just TV I’m afraid). Sitcoms and comedy shows were the first to come to mind – Fawlty Towers, Only Fools and Horses, Blackadder, Monty Python, Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies, Tommy Cooper, Tony Hancock, if you went way back, and many more. I’m pretty sure you could, as a retired person watch these all day long if you’ve got the right channels. I’m not sure what that indicates about our current environment.
Then we had, Top of the Pops, David Attenborough (and many other nature programmes) and Dr Who. Not sure what we did for crime in those days but recently Sherlock was a master stroke. Phew, no doubt I could go on, and on, but then you probably think I have.
Incidentally people were asked ‘what does the BBC mean to you?’ Probably my favourite response/s was from actor Tanya Moodie – ‘Familiarity, comfort, quality’ or David Mitchell – ‘a Lighthouse in the Dark’.
Retirement and television summary
So what it boils down to is that, in order to use TV as a positive addition to our retirement well-being, it is necessary to be selective. Don’t watch too much, chose the best (including memories / nostalgia, that’s allowed) and keep to a balanced diet oh, and maybe throw in the odd, unusual outside our normal comfort-zone programme. In that way TV watching becomes an asset to us rather than a guilt trip.
*I wrote about this in this old blog hence the number 2