A letter arrives from Virgin Media to tell us that, yet again, they are bumping up the cost of their subscription charges. Looking at what it costs, I am pretty sure we could enjoy an additional modest holiday every year without their service and I am at the stage where I will be quite happy to get rid of all the subscription channels.
I’m too embarrassed to tell you how much we tell you to help pay for Richard Branson’s Necker Island but even for that we don’t get Sky Sports channels on HD. This is because Sky, unique among all subscription channels, charge extra for HD. So now we watch sports through a TV fog. I’ve had enough.
It’s not as if I am remotely interested in most of the sport that’s being shown. I have never been interested in F1, I only watch certain golf tournaments, I have lost interest in cricket and I am looking forward to the new football season with all the enthusiasm of someone who is awaiting an operation for haemorrhoids. We don’t even get Sky Atlantic for our money, which is a pretty miserable state of affairs.
Thinking about it, I never watch TV in the morning, I never watch it when I am at home, I watch bits and pieces of an evening. I am probably nearer to being in a position to give up TV altogether, although I am not quite there yet.
I’ll give Virgin a call and ask them what they can offer to make me stay. It will need to be a substantial offer, preferably including Sky Atlantic and HD on Sky, and maybe even that won’t be enough. In any event, I prefer listening to the radio, reading and writing to watching telly so perhaps having less TV options will actually make my life better. I can always subscribe to stuff when I’m older and too infirm to do anything else.
