Monday 21 May 2007

I have pixel

Regular droppers-by will know that a month or two ago I parted ways with an obscenely big smellyvision, a hulking hulk who for two weeks impeded access to the Harlot kitchens and (at least, so I feared) wafted its televisual pheremones in the direction of lusty young tv burglars. Apart from its brief dalliance with this hulking hulk, Hôtel Harlot has hitherto been telly-free. Which was all more or less as I wanted it, except that it has rather hampered the Lexicon Harlot ability to add meaningfully to conversations about the latest ABC stevedoring unionist doco or what the young folk are getting up to in their bikinis at Big-Brotherville.

I was sucked into one such conversation last week, and I ruefully confessed that I didn't have a telly. I say ruefully, but there's something about the words, "Oh, I don't actually have a telly", that necessarily sounds smug: "Oh, I don't actually have a telly. While you're watching Big Brother, I'm gathered round the piano playing charades and translating Shakespeare into Sanskrit, you slave to tawdry mass culture, you."

Immediately, with smug-tolerating magnanimity, my conversationalist offers me her spare, an 18-inch Panasonic minus its aerial. I accept. I buy a set of rabbit-ears, $11 at Kmart. I have pixel. I watch the news. I learn more about AFL in seven minutes than I have learnt in the preceding 28 years. Ah, Melbourne. Bless this city, I say, where anyone can have a free telly just for sounding smug in the right quarter.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the acquisition of the telly, young lexicon. Although less young by the minute. HAPPY BIRTHDAY for tomorrow!!

Anonymous said...

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TimT said...

Somebody just let the cat out of the bag, so allow me to join in the general chorus of approval. Many happy congratulations for the season!

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Thanks, Cis, and Dense, and HB, and Mr Tim sir. It is indeed today my birdy. In fact, I might just put up a post to that effect.

Re yonder telly: I don't think I did sufficient justice to the role of my benefactor. Thank you, benefactor. You're super, as is your tv.

Anonymous said...

Gosh, Happy Birthday! I hope you're doing something lovely involving chocolate.

Mother mouse said...

Happy Birthday from me and the Mouse that Roared and others in this household. We all well remember the day of your birth.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Dear Karen, what I intend to do today involving chocolate is not fit to print. But thankee! And thanks to you too Mother Mouse & Co. I love youse.

JahTeh said...

29, I remember 29. It was the year I backed up to the coal fire and set alight my crinoline.

Happy Birthday, only 12 months til you're 30.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Ah, 30. Now there's a nice round number. Must remember to invest in a crinoline before I get there. x.