| Hailing from the deep 1970s, I well recall the first ever | | | | upper end of the age range, ie 80 plus! |
| remote control television and just what a whole new | | | | Being a forty something, I can recall the days of a test |
| area of wonder and joy it was, around at my | | | | card greeting you when clicked the television on during |
| then-friends house. As I remember the friend in | | | | the day, with shutdown at around midnight, after news |
| question was into the one up manship game, ours is | | | | at ten. |
| better than yours, etc etc. I just had to come and see | | | | This really did round off the evening and forced you to |
| their big new remote controlled television, a 30 inch set | | | | go to bed., but sure enough along came day time telly, |
| that back in 1973 cost a small fortune. | | | | now a by word for dreary rubbish watched, by the |
| Struth you didn't even have to get up to change | | | | elderly and unemployed. |
| channels and you could irritate everybody in the room | | | | Today's bewildering array of channels from various |
| by secretly fiddling with the brightness, what joy. The | | | | sources, sky, cable Freeview, Freesat, leads us to |
| first remotes used ultrasonic sound, that were soon | | | | believe that we must have every channel going, of |
| replaced by today's infrared system. Ultrasonic sound | | | | course working all the time to pay for these channels |
| that sent the dog in to a state of madness if you | | | | means we are to knackered to watch any of them, |
| happened to let it wander in their direction. | | | | arriving home and crashing out on the sofa, drifting off |
| Now who didn't torment the dog with their new toy! | | | | into a deep sleep. |
| My family didn't end up with a remote control television, | | | | Television to many is a great friend, that stands in the |
| or colour television for that matter until the mid | | | | corner of the room telling them what is going on in the |
| seventies, at first I wouldn't watch colour, except with | | | | world, or peering in on fictional tales of peoples every |
| colour turned down or in other words black and white. | | | | day lives, or in other words the dreaded soap opera. |
| All my first TV watching experiences were in black | | | | Could it be that the whole of television is simply a giant |
| and white, doctor who in colour it just wasn't on., those | | | | soap opera, the same familiar face telling us what the |
| loud garish colours! | | | | weather is doing tomorrow, or a newsreader |
| Even now in 2010 there are some who will not watch | | | | reassuring us that there is nothing to really worry |
| a colour picture, unless that is with the colour turned | | | | about, in connection with a large bomb that just took |
| down! Now few and far between, tending to be at the | | | | whatever part of whatever city with it. |