...dust to dust

Well, the aforementioned Freeview box has arrived and there it sits, under the telly, gathering dust.

And why? Because, as so accurately predicted, we haven’t got a bloody clue how to make it work.

There are, of course, no instructions whatsoever, it being a mate’s cast-off, and all the casual talk down the pub about scart sockets, selection menus and all that stuff went straight over my head.

So me and the Head Gardener/Technician plugged things in where they appeared to fit and, although there is a faint pulse and the eyelids have flickered once or twice, the sodding thing remains stubbornly close to flatlining.

We have tried everything, from being sensible and using the remote control, to playing mellow music, stroking it and wooing it with gentle words of encouragement, none of which made it any more forthcoming. Even swearing and threatening mindless violence left it unblinkingly unconcerned.

And so we remain a four-and-a-half-TV-channel family, doomed to watch repeats of George Gently and the slowly dying embers of Ashes To Ashes which, come to think of it, apart from Have I Got News For You, is pretty much all we watch anyway.

So that begs the question, why do we need a digibox unless, of course, some bright spark has decided to turn off the normal signal from that big pole I can see atop the Mendips and replace it with some digital doobry-firkin.

And that’ll never happen.