But at least every day is a learning day on here. I never knew that having the ability to turn off TV coverage that doesn't interest me is a sign that I'm being forced to mourn and the state is creepily ruling my leisure time.
Yes, because that’s exactly what everyone meant. Except they didn’t. Why not tell us that we should read a book or knit instead, with a side order of slightly sniffy “I don’t watch much TV”?
The “switch it off” argument is deployed whenever anyone suggests that something that has been broadcast is a bit unsuitable or offensive. Bernard Manning telling racist jokes? Switch it off. Racist 1970s sitcoms? Switch it off. Televised beauty contests? Switch it off. Luckily we’ve (mostly) got more sense than to accept a facile argument like “switch it off”, which is why things change for the better.
The BBC show loads of things that don’t interest me. What they don’t do, apart from on Friday, is unilaterally decide to broadcast identical fawning content on two channels simultaneously, cancel programming on others, downplay sensible news stories and mandate the playing of sorrowful music on radio stations. I don’t need permission from the “just switch it off and knit, he served his country, it’s history in the making” faction to be annoyed about that, and I don’t need anybody deciding on my behalf what’s appropriate viewing because a 99 year old man I’ve never met has died.
I’d be similarly annoyed if shops were closed because somebody royal had died, or parks, or gyms, or anywhere else I wanted to go. I don’t expect my day to day life to be limited, even temporarily, because somebody rich and posh, with no relevance to my life, has died.