Household Emergency: TV Not Working. How does one overcome this dilemma without making one look as though one is incapable of dealing with electrical malfunction?

Last night I made a decision.  I decided that I was spending too much time checking the internet on my phone instead of looking after baby, so I decided that from now on I would only check the internet on my phone if the baby was asleep.  Or if someone had texted me, as one needs to be able to check texts immediately, as may be very important (case in point, this very morning I received a text from a friend telling me that she had just got engaged).

This has all been going very well.

What has not been going so well, however, is that in celebration of my decision to spend less of my life looking at a screen and not at Piglet, the television has decided it is no longer working.

I got up this morning, laid Piglet down on his play mat, made myself a cup of tea and some toast with a nice bit of Nutella and sat down on the sofa to watch the Andrew Marr Show, Saturday Kitchen Best Bites, or whichever other Sunday morning television programme which I don't even like happened to be on, and nothing.  Nothing.  Just a message saying "weak or no signal."

Aha, I thought.  It's on ITV at the moment.  I switched it off last night after X Factor.  Clearly what has happened is that there has been a ferocious but very localised storm which has blown over the main ITV transmitter.  Let's try BBC.

Nothing.

Aha, I thought.  I know what's happened here.  There has been a huge solar storm and the Earth has been buffeted with electromagnetic waves from the Sun which have knocked out all the power lines and consequently there is currently no television across the whole of the UK.  This happened in Canada once.  I saw it on a documentary about the aurora borealis on BBC4.  BBC4 which has now been obliterated by cosmic rays.  Or perhaps there has been a terrorist attack and the TV stations have all been taken over by crazed fundamentalists who believe television is the work of the Devil and so have attacked all the transmitters.  Let's go to the BBC website and have a look.  Surely there will be a message like "TV transmitter problem causes widespread disruption" or "TV down across the nation after hostile takeover."

Hmm.  The main headline on BBC News is "Deal reached at UN climate talks," but then, they would say that wouldn't they?  The terrorists have cunningly taken over the website as well and replaced the real news with an innocuous headline about the UN and climate change to make us think there's not really been a hostile takeover and it's all business as usual.

Upon looking out of the window I then spotted that the television in a flat on the other side of the building was noticeably on, and appeared to be working normally.  Oh God, maybe there's something wrong with my TV, and it's JUST ME, and I will have to figure out what's wrong, and then fix it ALL BY MYSELF.  I am just going to have to step up to the plate and be a Capable Woman.

"Help!" I texted my brother, who lives 125 miles away, "my TV is not working.  And yes, it is plugged in."  It says this:

"There must be a problem with your building," came the reply.

Oh Christ, I'm going to have to climb onto the roof and start fiddling with the aerial, like Rod Hull and Emu.

There are two potential solutions here: 1.) assume there's a problem with the entire building and go and ask the concierge if anyone else is having problems with their TV, or 2.) assume that the problem is your TV and you've either unintentionally done something to cause the problem, like accidentally pull out the aerial despite the fact that after checking it multiple times, it definitely looks plugged in, or the TV/aerial is broken (the latter v. bad as have to purchase new one in time for X Factor final in four hours, with no money).

The first one is easier, but is clearly going to result in me looking like a total idiot, bumbling down to the reception desk, explaining to the concierge that my TV isn't working, and him giving me a withering look before asking if it is plugged in, before telling me that I am an idiot woman who doesn't understand how to operate the most basic of electrical appliances.  This is what always happens when trying to explain any kind of technical malfunction to a man.

The second one is of course terrifying but, given previous experience with technicals, most likely correct.  However, I must be Capable Woman and Resourceful Mother and not let any man know about this, as must prove to Piglet that women are just as capable as men when it comes to operating television, so that he grows up to be liberal, progressive, feminist man, and Mummy does not need to go running to her nearest male relative whenever there is TV problem, lost internet connection, dishwasher malfunction, broken lightbulb or any other type of household emergency.  I decide to start exploring the many buttons on the TV remote to see what they all do and whether any of them will solve the problem.

Aha!  There is TV button called "troubleshooting."  This is what I need.  Thank you, O holy TV remote.  Ah, aerial is set to "air."  Clearly this is not the problem as it was working yesterday with identical settings, but maybe it needs to be changed to "cable" now, even though I do not have cable TV, as TV is, like, digital now.  Maybe BBC website has something to say about this.  Maybe there has been whole-country changeover to cable television and all aerials need to be reset.

Go to BBC website.  Headline is still "Deal reached at UN climate talks."  Perhaps this cable TV changeover is so universally known by everyone except me, that it does not even merit a mention in national news.  But I read the Guardian Online every day, and nothing has ever been mentioned.  Perhaps the Guardian is too interested in worthy news stories about social issues and feminism and why I should be able to work my own TV, as a Capable Woman who does not need the help of men, to mention small thing like entire country cable TV changeover.

Right, let's reset all channels by tuning television again.  I know how to do this.  This is easy.

Argh have lost all TV channels, possibly permanently.

OK let's see if there is whole-building TV aerial malfunction.  Definitely not going to climb onto the roof like Rod Hull, so will just have to bite my lip and ask concierge.  Will need to go to Cafe Nero first, and purchase latte to steady nerves.

After peering through door into reception area, it turns out that it is Nice Concierge on duty, and not Smug Concierge, who once previously gave me withering look in relation to not knowing how to read the electricity meter.  Breathe sigh of relief.

"Er, you wouldn't happen to know if anyone has reported a problem with their..."

"TV signal?  Yes.  The whole building's down.  Everyone's annoyed because it's the X Factor final tonight."

THANK THE LORD.  Am Capable Woman.  TV is not broken, and I have not unintentionally forgotten how to plug it in.  Compared to this, not being able to watch X Factor final is minor inconvenience.

Piglet is ten weeks old, and I find myself asking the question, how much TV is too much?

Aha!  I don't want to speak too soon, but I think I may have found the secret of the elusive Bedtime Routine.

It is none other than popular children's television programme In the Night Garden.  So far it has helped Piglet settle down to sleep no less than two days running.

It is as yet still only 9pm so whether his current slumber will continue throughout the night remains to be seen.  Judging by the squeaks I can hear coming from the direction of his cot I doubt it.  Still, it is a marked improvement on the four hours of rocking and swaying I had to do the other night to get him to sleep.

I have to admit, In the Night Garden seems far less irritating than most of the other claptrap on CBeebies, although as I said before it is early days as I've only actually seen two episodes.  The reason for the lack of irritation is that there are no annoying human children's TV presenters in the Night Garden, only odd creatures with names like Iggle Piggle and Macca Pacca (please excuse any spelling errors).  Macca Pacca is my favourite so far, as he seems oddly obsessed with putting pebbles into neat piles for no apparent reason, and tonight actually went to bed clutching one of these pebbles.  Hopefully Piglet will not start collecting random stones and bringing them home once he is old enough to understand what's going on.  Although having said that, I'm not sure I really understand what's going on in the Night Garden so that would make Piglet at least thirty-four by the time it dawns on him.

It's difficult to know how much Piglet really is taking in from these TV programmes.  He does stare at In the Night Garden quite intently, but then he also stared intently at the world gymnastics championships today, and Loose Women, and the news, and he probably would have been pretty interested in Homes Under the Hammer if his bouncy chair hadn't been facing the opposite direction.  I'm fairly sure that at this stage the television is merely an interesting provider of bright colours and sounds, but I have found myself avoiding Jeremy Kyle the last few days just in case his understanding runs any deeper.  I wouldn't want Piglet to think that Jeremy or his contestants are modelling normal behaviour.  That said, I don't really want him thinking it's normal for people to be riding around in tanks shooting AK47s into the air either but we have continued watching the news.  From what I can remember, I didn't start to be really interested in the news until I was about seven or eight years old.  Up until that point although I think I had a vague idea that certain events were going on, I tend to remember individuals rather than events.  I'm pretty sure at one point I believed, somewhat terrifyingly, that Margaret Thatcher and my grandmother were the same person.

Perhaps I shouldn't expose Piglet to the news after all.  Who knows what horrors he could come up with?

Sadly, contrary to what Jeff Brazier and that fat one from TOWIE might say, I will not be walking away with £30,000 in cash and a holiday to the Caribbean

Desolate.

I had decided I was going to enter every single one of those competitions you get before the ad breaks of programmes on ITV-you know, Lorraine, This Morning, X Factor....the ones that promise untold riches beyond one's wildest dreams: £30,000 in cash; a brand new car; a Chanel handbag; a holiday to the Caribbean...

Some of these competitions can be entered via the website, I thought cheekily.  That means they are FREE, and I will avoid the charge for a text message or phone call to enter, which will inevitably run to about £10.  I will CHEAT THE SYSTEM.  I am a GENIUS.

It appears that, yet again, the rule of whatever looks too good to be true, is too good to be true, despite ITV's valiant attempts to convince us otherwise by parading Jane and Trevor from Wolverhampton in front of us, sitting on their sofa talking about how all their dreams came true when they won £30,000 and a holiday to the Caribbean, not to mention that Rolex watch and ipad mini.  This is because when you actually try to enter these competitions, you have to answer, not an easy-peasy question about which city is the capital of France: Paris, Berlin or Rome, but a long line of intrusive questions about one's electricity supplier, along with a requirement to provide one's telephone number so that one can be contacted in the unlikely event of winning....and with a free quote from Npower, some hard-sell telesales and daily nuisance calls from India for eternity.

Well, there was no way I was signing up for that, even if I was going to get £2500 to spend at Primark or free groceries for a year from Morrisons.

Morrisons and Primark?  What sort of people do they think enter these competitions?  Last time I went to Primark, in search of some cheap and comfortable leggings to wear in the immediate postnatal period, I found to my horror that not only do pairs of £3 size eight leggings turn out to be somewhat variable in actual size, but neither of them fit over my postnatal bottom.  And not in an attractive, Kim Kardashian-esque way.  From now on I am going to veto these competitions unless they are offering free groceries for a year from Waitrose.

A Critique of Daytime Television: 1.) Real Housewives

I just shouted "Yes!" when the announcer on ITV2 announced a double bill of Real Housewives of Beverley Hills.

I am officially a very sad person.

The thing is, when you are on maternity leave, there isn't a lot to do.  Or there is, but most of it involves spending money I do not have.  Got a credit card bill in the post today and almost cried as I completely forgot I had a credit card that needs to be paid.  I thought the credit card was for buying designer shoes and pretending they were free, as the impact on the bank account isn't felt immediately and therefore doesn't count.  Real Housewives doesn't exactly help in this respect as the women on it appear to have all the money in the world despite appearing never to do a single day's work.  After googling some of the Real Housewives, I am reliably informed that at least some of them do in fact work, but how they manage to fit this in amongst all the partying, wine drinking and bitching, and asking stupid questions that no one ever asks in real life, such as "So now we're alone...I wanted to ask you, why do you have such a problem with me?" and "Did you just give me the Evil Eye?  You just gave me the Evil Eye!" (the latter, btw, led to a full-on six person argument that I thought was going to descend into actual fisticuffs).  One of the cast of Big Rich Texas, which is even worse than Real Housewives, is actually a successful doctor and author, and yet seems to spend the entire series wafting around a clothes shop with elaborately styled hair, drinking and schmoozing.  This raises two questions: 1.) when does she do the doctoring and authoring? and b) why am I not this person?

Argh an entire section of the cast of Real Housewives of Beverley Hills have just swanned off to France (which is a LONG way from Beverley Hills, so we're not talking driving down to Dover and hopping on Le Shuttle here) for no apparent reason, just because they can.  I hate them all.  That said, suspiciously all the scenes that were supposedly filmed in France seem to look exactly like Beverley Hills, so there is a strong possibility the whole trip has been faked (a bit like the Real Housewives' friendships and arguments, one suspects).

Oh I love it, the French scenes now involve a French flag flapping about and, bizarrely, something that looks like a tank driving down the Champs Elysee.  Is France being invaded again?  Or is this just how Americans imagine the rest of the world rolls?  Maybe they just found some very old footage of Paris in 1945 and re-used it to save money on air fares.

Today, in a bid to get away from all this daytime television, I signed Piglet and I up for a parent and baby group at the local children's centre.  This may be worse than staying in watching Real Housewives.  I doubt it will involve champagne, but it may well involve bitching.  Watch this space.