Fish and Chips or Smoked Trout Risotto?

Again and again I find myself coming back to Channel Nine, like a bad addiction. Always knowing that it's doing strange and disturbing things to my psyche. But I can't help it. I go into denial. I tell myself all sorts of things to seduce myself and put myself to sleep over it. Things like, "it's all just a harmless bit of entertainment." Hey, sometimes it really can be. I make no apologies for that.

But there are undeniably some aspects of Channel Nine that make it the trashiest, (part of its appeal,) most insidious mouthpiece for the rich and powerful, that's around right now. To watch Channel Nine with that in the back of your mind, means one of two things, to put your conscience on the shelf, or to be permamently outraged. I'm the second.

Channel Nine is like Fish and Chips. You see it, or smell it (respectively,) and you start to salivate. It isn't bad for you if you only have it once in a while, just for a treat, you tell yourself. Everyone needs to let loose and relax every now and then, we've all only got one life. Yeah it's all true enough. But you can't help going back for more and more of all those those things you know can't be good for you. And it's never as satisfying as you thought it was going to be before you started. You always end up flaked out on the couch, feeling bloated and saying to yourself, "what just happened there? That was like ingesting cardboard."


Now when you watch SBS, suddenly you realise that there's been this place down the road serving Smoked Trout Risotto for the same price. But wait, there's more. There's Gado Gado, Pupasas, Ciabatta Bread. It's not addictive, it's good for you and it's still surprisingly, really yummy. It takes an acquired taste, it's classy but not snobby and its not as provincial as those country fish and chips. Everytime I go there, I make a promise to myself to go back. I find myself frequenting it more and more often. You've got Big Love, Shameless, Myth Busters, XY Docs, The Eurovision Song Contest, The Roman Empire, World Movies, The Movie Show, RAN, the list goes on and on. But those fish and chips ... I don't know. Can I ever leave them alone?

TV homework for the insane or bored.

This is really fun. I do it once a week if I get half the chance. Either on a Saturday morning while I'm still in bed, or during the week while I'm cleaning the house, but bedroom is best if you have a TV in there. If you're in Australia you just tune into SBS. If you're from another country, use whatever your multicultural television station is. It's easy. All you have to do is put the TV on this channel when it's time for the world news. The stipulation is, you aren't allowed to know the language of the country whose news you are watching. Now shut the curtains, and it almost feels as though you're in a hotel room somewhere doesn't it? And it's hot, or cold outside, accordingly, and everything that's happening in the world news is happening right outside that bedroom window, and if you got up and put your coat on, you'd walk out into a long hallway and then into the very streets of the news you're watching. You wouldn't understand a word anyone was saying around you, unless you were carrying your Lonely Planet travellers guide. Isn't this cosy? You're poor but you're still travelling. Couldn't you just jump on the bed and raid the mini bar? Look around you for God's sake - I bet you never thought you'd have enough money to get here! Isn't that unknown language beautiful?