The curse of the TV (an old post that I thought maybe should go up)

For those of you that know me, or even if you don't, you may know (or suspect) that music takes up so much of my time, and always has. Probably at the detriment of sport. I've never been a sporty sort of person. I was always the last kid picked on school teams. Or maybe the second last, at best. While other kids spent Saturday mornings playing hockey or soccer or football, or there were netball trainings and matches after school and on the weekend (though I will admit that I did go to netball training for a little while, I think I might have even played a couple of times?!?!), I was busy having music lessons, or in high school, at rehearsals for choir or orchestra or band or something like that.

However, I will admit that I really quite enjoy watching a healthy dose of sport. That's emphasis on WATCHING, not participating in. Just after Christmas, we bought a new TV. It is big and fancy, and the definition is pretty extraordinary. Paritcularly after years of our trust analogue TV that wasn't quite wide enough when broadcasting moved to the wide screen format. At the moment, there is tennis. There was (and also still is?) some cricket. I used to think that cricket was the world's most boring thing - like watching grass grow. And somehow, after years of persistence, I have grown to enjoy it. So much that I have paid to go see it live.

My father and brother have always enjoyed soccer, so there's been a healthy dose of that too.
Come the Olympics or Commonwealth Games (or other similarly large sporting event), I usually tune in with great enthusiasm. I find myself reading the sports news (when I usually give it little more than a passing glance) to keep up with the latest results and happenings. When the Rugby (union) World Cup came to Australia (and that group with South Africa and England in it was in Perth) I avidly watched the matches.

So my point here is not to glorify sport, or otherwise. It is merely to point out any fallacy that may exist in thinking that this classical pianist (slash economist) only cares about the languishing state of the arts (another discussion and debate in itself) in this country. The attraction of such an incredible TV is overwhelming that every summer (and sometimes, winter) that I am at home is spent languidly enjoying hours on the couch looking at the screen.