To me every day when I meet someone or learn something new and interesting is a wonderful day.
I don’t count on TV much in that respect. Maybe it’s the churlishness of old age.
However, yesterday having laboured over my current nightmares for few hours, I looked to see what the fool’s lantern had to offer. Not a lot. Hundreds of channels almost entirely choked with garbage.
Then, quite by chance, I ended up watching a programme about Ireland. I’m a great fan of the country. I once went there for a weekend and spent two weeks, and I love the stories about the old Brehons.
Anyhow, the programme was wonderful.
I learned about Ogham, the ancient Irish form of writing. I discovered how places I visited, like Waterford and Wexford, got their names (from old Norse). I saw a fantastic railway line designed by Brunel that runs along perilous seaside cliffs, an 800 year old lighthouse first built by a Norman warrior, and the recreation of an 1849 experiment on a beach that led to the science of seismology – for which we have to thank a Dubliner called Mallet.
Glorious stuff – all on the Open University channel. There were probably only about 17 of us watching it because The Apprentice was on at the same time, but I know who got most value.
My only worry is that I learned a while ago that the Open University has a marketing department of 40. The devil usually find work for idle hands to do, so I hope we’re not going to be afflicted by a plague of “station idents”.
On a totally different subject, I keep wondering why every time Microsoft brings out a new version of something it’s more complicated and far worse than it was before. Maybe they operate in the same way as the great Toad’s lunatic tax system.
I'm a great believer in the adage 'you are never too old to learn' and that you can learn something new everyday.
And my experience is similar to yours but includes an example from the radio.
And both happened on Thursday. On Thursday morning, on a Radio Scotland chat show they were talking about a new bee keeping kit just made available.
It's always been an aspiration of mine to keep bees but I know I will never do it but it did catch my attention.
I know a fair bit about bee behaviour but not that 2000 of them, from a hive which can support about 50,000, work themselves to death every day. Interestingly, that is about the exact number of eggs the queen lays daily.
The second was from a Discovery channel programme about Egypt and that Cleopatra was in fact Cleopatra VI and that she and the 5 before her were effectively Greeks.
Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra of Egypt and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. Wikipedia.
Well, I didn't know that! What worries me now is what else I don't know.
As there's not much on TV, take a look at this: http://www.watchislam.com/videos/video.php?vid=3
I think you'll enjoy it.
I wish I was half as intelligent as the speaker on this video, but I'm not, which is why I can't articulate what I'm trying to say the way it's supposed to be.
http://www.watchislam.com/videos/video.php?vid=3