Around seventy channels and nothing to watch! My daily fix of Will and Grace ended when our cable guys decided that Zee English is not required to be aired. The only English entertainment channel I really liked was Hallmark, and that’s disappeared as well. As for Star World, well, there’s always Ed. That’s a grand total of one serial a week.
And someone please let me know what’s so great about Desperate Housewives. Saw one episode and decided that I would need to be paid handsomely to watch any more.
On the sports front, I discovered to my horror some Africa versus Asia cricket series going this past week. Horror which intensified upon sampling some of the lovely fielding displays. And bubbled over when a pair of Indian and Pakistani pace bowlers—both with certain question marks on their integrity and credibility—were discussing reverse swing in terms that would have been condemned as racist and xenophobic had they been, say, English or Australian.
And since when did wrestling—the one with all the yelling and posturing and strange costumes—become a sport?! Just when we thought we were rid of it, it’s back on TV, and what’s more, Star Sports has Hindi commentary! Which is so bad, that it makes me wish for the Hindi commentary of the Euro 2004 to come back. At least one could laugh at it!
So, it’s just the football that saves the day, well, the weekends, at least. John Dykes’ team does a great job of the analysis, previews, etc. My greatest fear is that ESPN-Star are suddenly going to decide to go all nationalistic and turn the footy analysis into a bilingual Hindi/English mix that neither Indian English-speakers nor Hindi-speakers will be able to follow!
(My second-greatest fear is that our cable guy—whose middle name is ‘initiative’—will decide that this Afro-Asian thing is more important than the Ashes, and blank it out.)
~PD
I remember this layout…then it changed back. And now it’s here again!
Make up your mind, woman!
Same suggestion–let us wear masks and go beat up cable wallahs 🙂
but seriously, I detest cricket and quite like Desperate Housewives. Give it a chance. It isn’t that bad really. It does have a strong plotline and intrigue. Quite watchable once you get over the desperation of the lead characters.
Too true. I guess that’s why they call the ruddy thing the Idiot Box. As Bruce Springsteen sang so memorably around 15 years ago:
I bought a bourgeois house in the Hollywood hills
With a truckload of hundred thousand dollar bills
Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on
Well now home entertainment was my baby’s wish
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and I pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There’s fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on.
All hail the Boss!
Don’t we all know about dumb cable-wallahs and their scary bouts of initiative! Zee English disappeared a long time back in our neighbourhood too, leaving me pining for my weekly fixes of Gilmore Girls and Caroline in the City. But I agree with Alpana – do give Desperate Housewives a chance. Don’t expect anything scintillating, but there is a bit of mystery going on that seems quite promising!