Turn that TV off and... save your brain

I watch a lot of TV, me. Bart Simpson was once asked how much TV he watched: “Oh,  6, 8 hours a day. More if there’s something good on.”
          That’s been me for as long as I can remember. I loved the box as a child, and although irritating things like school, or later, work, got in the way from time to time, it’s been that way ever since. Then the other day, to my utter horror, I heard that watching too much tele (and that turns out to be more than 3 hours a day, apparently) can bring forward the time you develop Alzheimer’s. How the researchers came to that conclusion I’m not sure, but if true, it adds one more thing to the growing list of activities to be avoided if we wish to dodge the bullet of the grey plague.

I can only hope those researchers got it wrong, because the change in lifestyle I would have to undergo would be profound. I love the cinema, and although I go to the movies once or twice a month, 90% of the movies I watch are on the TV. I get most of my news in like manner, while I learn a great deal from my interest in non fiction TV. Only a few days ago I saw the wonderful National Geographic documentary Free Solo, concerning the great rock climber Alex Honnold’s bid to climb the half-mile high, sheer wall of Yosemite’s El Capitan, alone and without artificial aids of any kind. In the last couple of years, during what I now call “The Time of the Great Troubles”, when I was under threat of going to prison for crimes I did not commit, watching TV was essential, and I use that word advisedly, to avoid my cracking up completely. Programmes like Frasier and Game of Thrones literally (obviously not literally) helped me keep my head above water. Having said that I generally avoid brainless and soul destroying programmes such as soaps, ‘reality TV’ and ‘jeopardy’ shows, where there is some sort of competition going on, with the exception of University Challenge. Do you think that will help? I doubt it.

But what do I do now? Watch less tele, or keep going the same way as ever, but just feel guilty and fearful about it? I suspect the latter. Well at least I’m not watching it now. No wait, I am...