I’m terrible on TV... but that’s not why I gave up watching it altogether

LIKE most people lucky or arrogant or unhinged enough to make a living ranting at strangers on random subjects, I get asked to go on TV now and again. When I was younger and still held the vague notion that I might amount to something more than a hairy, guddled misanthrope, I would occasionally say yes.

Good for the Deerin brand, I’d tell myself; another step towards total world domination. I’d put on my least crumpled suit, rummage for a tie at the bottom of the wardrobe, think up some blindingly smart bons mots with spurious relevance to the subject at hand, and head for the studio.

Presenter: ‘Joining us now is the Daily Rager’s Chris Deerin. Thanks for coming in, Chris. Wow, that’s quite the tie. What’s your view of this bold attempt by the Government to standardise the size of Monster Munch/force immigrants to walk on their hands when in public/breed a cobra with a bear to create the soldier of the future?’

Me, wearing a smile meant to convey languid savoir-faire but instead suggesting imminent, brutally invasive surgery: ‘Well, Jeremy [always call them Jeremy, even the women – saves time, and you’ll be right 70 per cent of the time, even when it is a woman], at moments like this I’m reminded of what Oscar Wilde/George Orwell/Joan Collins once said – namely, that it’s not the size of the Monst… or was that Einstein... that, erm, a wise cobra always…erm… damn. What was the question again?’

At which point I would fall silent and gaze at the floor, while the interviewer stared at me with an expression that somehow communicated all three of horror, pity and contempt. ‘Thanks Chris, now to the sport…’

WHATEVER a TV natural is, I’m its opposite. Something about the extreme falseness of the situation – the napalm-orangeness of lavishly made-up skin, the dishwasher-fresh teeth, the frozen Lego hair and dead eyes and flat laughter – disagrees with me.

I can’t keep control of what I say, or carry off a worthwhile approximation of a functioning human. I’ve never got any better at it. It’s pointless. And so, for some years now, whenever I’ve been asked, I’ve always said no. Dear viewer, I do it for all our sakes.

It’s not that I lack respect for the medium. I’m in awe of those who have mastered this most terrifying of trials, who have the mental agility to construct a coherent argument in the milliseconds they’re given or shape the killer question when an opportunity unexpectedly presents itself.

How does the great Kay stand in her wellies in a flooded village and talk non-stop for six hours without throwing herself beneath the rising waters? How does iceman Huw keep it cool when the teleprompter breaks? Why is it only ever Clarkson who seems to crack and headbutt the tech guy? It’s voodoo to a twitchy imbecile like me: pure magic.

‘Magic’ was where TV came in. This week marks the 80th anniversary of the BBC launching the world’s first television service (actually, the Germans had managed it the previous year, but we’ll pass over that).

Around 3pm on November 2, 1936, after a few pompous speeches, a musical comedy star called Adele Dixon, backed by the BBC Television Orchestra, sang the specially composed ‘Magic Rays of Light’ live to the few hundred viewers who could afford a television set. In perfect Beeb RP, hands clasped before her, she trilled: ‘A mighty maze of mystic magic rays is all about us in the blooooo/ And in sight and sound a trace, living pictures out of space/ To bring our new world out to yooooo.’

Watching from this far out, it’s an extraordinarily innocent and unknowing moment. It was, arguably, the most significant cultural innovation of the century: the world would forever bend around its curve. Lovely Adele Dixon was standing in humanity’s future.

Imagine how nervous the performers must have felt, the capacity for it all to go wrong in so many different ways – all of it new, all of it fragile, none of it a banker, and all borne with the wry, pencil-moustached surface calm that defined the pre-War British ruling class. The programme continued with a news bulletin, dancing girls, comedians and a Chinese juggling act. In some ways, we haven’t come so very far.

On that first day, the channel shut down after its first hour for a fivehour break, because the BBC’s director of television wanted to ‘avoid eye strain’ for viewers. But really, having turned the TV on, we’ve never turned it off again.

We’ve pushed for more and still more. This week, when a Tory MP demanded that in the new age of Brexit the BBC closedown should once more be preceded by the national anthem, it had to be gently pointed out to him that ‘closedown’ hasn’t existed for years.

Has this immersion been entirely to our benefit? What would life be like without television? What would we do without that permagabbling, flickering box in the corner? Can we cope with silence and stillness? Could a person stay culturally relevant without a TV? Could he still take part in polite conversation? Would it be possible to remain non-odd?

I ask partly out of self-interest, because I realise that I have become that very person. I go to the pub for the big football matches, but that’s pretty much it. I was never an obsessive viewer, but over the past few years I’ve lost the habit completely.

It’s happened entirely by accident. First, we bought a new house that came with a study, for which my mum gave me an absorbingly comfy chair. Then my wife insisted on buying a new sofa for the living room in cold, go-away-please leather, rather than warm, sithere-love fabric.

Then I lost my glasses and never got around to replacing them, which makes seeing anything more than a few feet away quite tricky. So I’m not often in a room with a telly, and when I am it’s an irrelevant blur.

IMISS (though not in the emotional sense) everything. Question Time and Newsnight are reported to me via Twitter. I don’t see must-see documentaries. I haven’t given a second to any of the box-set favourites – not even the bits in Game of Thrones where the foxy blonde girl takes off all her clothes. I can tell you zilch about Breaking Bad or Mad Men, less about House of Cards or Homeland. I’m wobbly on which soaps are still on and which have been cancelled.

Passing closely by a TV a few months ago I saw a familiar face and tweeted ‘Bloody hell, Bobby Davro’s on Coronation Street.’ Someone pointed out I meant Les Dennis and that this had been the case for two years.

My most intense viewing experience of 2016 came when I took the kids to see Trolls at the cinema, and bawled my eyes out as the Justin Timberlake gonk sang True Colours to the Anna Kendrick gonk.

In 80 years, TV in Britain has gone from one channel to more than 300. It’s an unfathomably titanic success, dominating our popular culture, our downtime, our politics, our media, and our conversations.

There are clearly many great programmes being made, to suit all tastes, and a lot of talented people working in the medium, which is wonderful. But there’s inevitably been a commensurate increase in the rubbish.

That’s what I always think when I occasionally flick blankly through the thumb-numbing volume of channels, before giving up: there is so much on, but nothing to watch. And yet people are watching it.

So I report back from the resistance, if you like. Life on the outside, it’s alright. Silence is still golden. Getting lost in the deafening stillness of a good book remains one of life’s great blood-quickening and educational pleasures. There is less zombie-time, which allows you the space to know yourself a little better. You can still make a decent stab at talking to people about things. As for non-odd, well, I never stood a chance anyway.

It was definitely Noel Coward (the advantages of being close to your books – I’ve just checked) who said: ‘Television is for appearing on, not looking at.’ I’d go the whole hog: for me, television is neither for appearing on, nor looking at.