Incoming...

...rant. It has come to my attention that the Olympics (the limpets) are going on - in two different places simultaneously to boot, Torino and Turin. Now I realise that people like to watch this and I respect their right to do so, just as I respect their right to smoke in their own home, worship whichever imaginary friends they like and pierce any part of their body that doesn't result in extra cost to the NHS.

In Britain we have sports channels, and this is an entirely satisfactory state of affairs. The sports channels are even called 'Sky Sport (number)' as a red flag to the wary. Not only can you always avoid turning on the sports channels, but you can even not pay for them and thus not have them. 'Perfick' as the dad used to say in 'Darling Buds of May'.

Now something big like the limpets can bleed out, but as far as I can work out, only on to BBC2, a channel reserved for such overspill. And this is my point. My sports filter is pretty damn good, it is like a force field, it protects me really rather well from most sport intrusions. What I object to most strongly is the amount of bleed going on over here.
OK, news progs, I get that, 'set filters to stun'. But there seem to be no sports channels here. The limpets are on channels that I might normally watch, do in fact. My entire viewing of the French Canadian channel has come to a grinding halt. Another channel which normally shows sensible and mainstream programmes has been infested. And the bleeding doesn't stop there. There is this terrible pattern here of stop start programming. Two weeks of 'new episodes' then either the show disappears or they show a repeat. Do they know what that does to a person's brain, to their comfort zone? Now, with the limpets, there's sweet Fanny Adams on anywhere on TV. Bloody good thing we have the trusty mythbox. Dear god, this is the kind of thing that encourages intolerance and civil unrest.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Tony's government have won the vote on the smoking ban and his anti-glorification of terrorism bill. Nothing to do with sport whatsoever, just something cheerful.
Also, Kevin and I went to see 'Underworld Revolution' last night, splendid, no storyline but lots of great effects, fantastic cast, vampires and werewolves crawling out of the woodwork.
All's right with the world after all just not on TV.