Of course no-one will admit responsibility but some outlandish charges have been showing up on our phone bill - charges for calls to “premium numbers” for TV programmes. Now, being a belligerent old curmudgeon, I don’t “do” premium numbers, not even the ones that connect you to charming young ladies for a bit of chat on suitably saucy subjects. The wife doesn’t “do” them either, nor the daughter nor her boyfriend, nor even the cat. So who and why?
Yesterday evening was a typical Saturday night for TV addicts like ourselves. An hour of Strictly Ballroom during which neither the wife or I had enough interest to phone our support for Darren Gough, or Colin Jackson, or anyone else. Had the daughter been in the house, she might have sent a surreptitious text message vote for “Goughy” via her own mobile, but she and her boyfriend were safely aboard a USA-bound flight to catch a little pre-Christmas skiing.
After Strictly Ballroom there was The X Factor. Now I was as pleased as the next man that the wonderful Brenda made it through to the next round, but I didn’t vote for her. The wife assures me that Journey South will win it, and she is sufficiently certain about it that she assures me there is no need to vote. Over two million people apparently did vote however.
The came I’m a Celebrity, Get me Out of Here. This was notable for Carol Thatcher’s effortless handling of snakes, rats and spiders, as much as for her nonchalant farting (I wonder if her mother released wind during her meetings with the French President?). But we weren’t going to phone support for Carol or anyone else. There was a dodgy moment when we lay in bed half watching the I’m a Celebrity Live follow-up programme which mostly consists of fly-on-the-wall camera shots of goings on in the camp. At the foot of the screen a phone-in “guess-the-number” game plays continuously and, alarmingly, the wife quickly worked out the correct answer. Even then she showed admirable restraint and left the phone alone.
Maybe we should have gone to France for the weekend to avoid all this phone-in nonsense. We would have been just in time for the French “Téléfon” charity appeal.
Footnote: For those readers who are interested this is the Ranting Nappa's one hundredth blog. They don't get any better do they?
