Thursday, May 15, 2014

Mr Liberation

I've noticed an odd phenomenon has started taking place in my house... a sort of sofa based war between myself and my fiance. There are no words, there was no great declaration and I've thus far put up no resistance - but now I feel it's time to put this out there to the other great household leaders and see if I am alone in my suffering.

I've noticed that when my fiance, let's call him Alan, and I are sat watching the TV or a film, about half way through I'll see his hand slowly, casually, almost sneakily make it's way across me under my line of vision and very carefully, barely even scuffing the fabric of my clothes, he'll lift the remote control off my lap and settle it on his arm of the sofa.

He seems to do this for no reason other than to liberate the poor, downtrodden remote control from my maniacal grasp and liberate it to his pastures green over there. He is the Red Cross to my dictator; freeing the helpless buttons from my tyranny.

Once he has the remote he settles; you can see his posture relax as he feels complete and heroic. His mind is clear now he knows there's no way I can flagrantly abuse the remote control for another night.

I don't know what he expects from me? Is he worried that one day he'll ask me to turn the volume up and turn to see me chewing on the batteries going, "IT'S NOT WORKING?!" Or that I'll glibly decide midway through the latest Avengers DVD that I'd rather watch Points of View and just flick from Robert DJ to a Celia from Clifton without checking with him first?

How badly does he think I misunderstand buttons? How does he live with himself that I regularly, nay often, make use of the oven left entirely to my own devices? I HAVE A SMART PHONE GENIUS, I CAN WORK THE REMOTE.

Not that we're really getting to watch much TV at the moment... our neighhbours recently purchased a new sound system and despite the vibrations being strong enough to play my coil like an accordion, I just feel too British to go downstairs and ask them to turn it down. It's just too awkward.

"Hello, I'm so sorry to bother you, but, the thing is, I do apologise but you're sort of ruining my life... would you mind awfully... no, no, I'm sorry - I shouldn't have brought it up. We'll just move, it's easier."

Instead, we've just started trying to watch whatever they're watching in tandem and pretending we have surround sound. It only works if you can get to their circled Radio Times in time, if not you end up watching Planet Earth to the melodious tones of Gregg Wallace from Masterchef. Lions making a kill in the Sahara, "Cooking doesn't get tougher than this." You are so right Gregg.

My neighbours are American, they get very in to the TV. You can hear them getting really in to the tense bits: WHOOO!! YEAH!!! OH MY GOD... NO?! SHITIDON'TBELIEVEIT And I'm sat there thinking, "Man they LOVE this, does America not have Flog-It?"

I've been trying to Derren Brown them into watching what I'm into so we can have a bit of compromise about the situation. A lot of my neighbours have put up Vote Green signs, but you'll notice if you take a look in my front garden, in the European Election I am voting Sherlock.

I'm just joking, I'm a twentysomething living in the south east... I don't have a garden. I'm sure house prices will be lower if Sherlock gets in though.

Maybe I'll ask him his position on it when he pops round to find out how and why my two neighbours were found early one morning with the batteries from my remote control wedged firmly horizontally in their nasal cavities. I guess perhaps Alan has been doing it for my good all along...

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