Written by Gears !

                             DAYTIME TRASH
                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  
  Imagine : It's Monday, you have a day off work/school, you turn on the
television..... what do you see ? DAYTIME TV !!!!! AAAGGGGGHHH !!!! There
is no escape !!!

  It's strange, the minute you turn it on a couple of TV blandies appear.
Usually a man and a woman... They smile and say "Hello, how are you." In
a caring but "I wish I wasn't here" voice. But.... The viewer can now 
escape !

  Changing the channels doesn't seem to do anything, as BBC1's "Good
Morning" is a direct copy of ITV's "This Morning" (can you spot the 
similarities ?) The BBC even immitate commercial breaks so that viewers
can go and make a "nice cup of tea". Trying to get away from this endless
flow of dieting tips, problem phone-ins, dress-making, recipies, "Doctor"
spots, make-up tips, smiles, crap jokes, boring "special features", and
yet more phone-ins isn't easy.

  But wait.... Let's try the huge range of channels that are available
now that Cable TV and Satellite have appeared. After quickly looking at
BBC2 and Channel 4 we find that they are both showing a scratchy
black+white film. So it's on with the satellite receiver and......... 
oh... a game show.... even worse, it's one of those American game-shows
where the contestants get over excited when they win an unbelievably
small amount of money. It goes something like this :-

Host (Bob) - Okay Wilma, answer this correctly to win another $5. What
is the capital of France ?

Contestant (Wilma) - Erm...... That's a hard one...... Can you give me
a clue Bob ?

Host (Bob) - No, not really... You've got 5 seconds left...take a
guess.

Contestant (Wilma) - Is it Paris, Bob ?

Host (Bob) - I'm sorry.......but................. YOU'RE CORRECT !

Contestant (Wilma) - WWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH !!!!

  At this point Wilma hugs the other contestants while the "canned" 
clapping is badly edited in. Wilma jumps around a bit more......then
the (invisible) audience suddenly stop clapping as the "pause" button
is pressed on the tape-player. A strange set-up of light-bulbs shows
her prize total... an amazing $15....... how sad their lives must be....
@5
  The game show finishes and you notice that it was recorded in 1982.
You'd wondered why they had strange clothing. All the Sports channels
are showing either Snooker, Tennis or something else that happened 
years ago. CNN is showing....news. And so is Sky News. UK Gold is
showing a 6 year-old episode of Neighbours (oh dear!) The Childrens
Channel is showing an old kids programme. MTV is about the only
half-decent channel which is showing.... music videos. The German 
channels (which seem to be taking over the Astra satellite !) are 
showing yet more crap dubbed-over films from America and Britain.
Actually, it's quite funny watching the A-Team in German !! The rest
of the channels are scrambled....

  Cable isn't much better... Asia Vision isn't exactly entertaining,
while Discovery is showing the same programme for the millionth time,
as are most of the other cable stations. It's surprising that the 
fibre-optic cable is capable of transmitting billions of different
channels to your home, yet only a few are actually operating because
they don't have enough money to do anything.

   Well, there we go.... Why bother watching the never-ending load 
of Australian imports and other crap TV when you can load ZAM on your
Amiga ?!

Gears 1993

FootNote - Actually, satellite isn't that bad now ! Read the Truth
About Satellite TV.