Licence and Registration, Please

Well, it's the first day of March and, paradoxically, the weather forecast is calling for a bit of a cold spell, with frost overnight--the perfect excuse for a night at home, digging into our bounty of Parisian chocolate. And just how do I know that valuable piece of meteorological information? Why, the television, of course! It's been a week with our new friend and we haven't really watched very much, except for the news. But tonight, I flipped through channels while Bob used the computer and I happened on a very strange game show, er, "quiz" show that I instantly dismissed as insipid, only to thoroughly get into it (Bob didn't find it amusing). It really is silly, but somehow a quiz show that rewards contestants for quickly being able to locate a certain product (vinegar, for example) in a supermarket aisle is an endearing one in my books. Then, completely without trying, I stumbled across the next episode of "my" show--a silly reality show, of which there seem to be as many here as in North America--Masterchef, your pretty standard ordinary-people-compete-for-a-chance-to-become-a-professional-chef show:

I'm not quite sure what the judges' credentials are, but they don't appear to have the standard cruel streaks that seem necessary to be any type of reality-show judge, so that was nice. Next up was a bit of a nature show about birds in the UK, a few moments of a show where doctors wander high streets giving advice and conducting tests to diagnose various ailments, then part of another nature show about wintertime in various places, then your typical decorator-fixes-up-impossibly-ugly-flat show. Big excitement, huh? Now that we're properly licensed--TV licensed, that is--we can watch all of these "fantastic" shows with wild abandon. Bob joked that we should print out our licence and tape it on the wall above the TV, like a restaurant licence. In any case, after I post this entry, it's back to the couch to flip through this week's Time Out to find something (more) exciting (than Supermarket Sweep) for us to do tomorrow night!