Listing

I used to love The Radio Times. It seems rather odd now, given I have absolutely no relationship with formalised television schedules whatsoever (good old iPlayer), but back in the dreamy, rose-tinted days of yore the new RT would be optically devoured every week.

It didn’t take long. I’m fairly sure that not only did it only contain the two BBC channels (and no daytime TV, of course) but also lacked about 75% of the endless features that now pad out the magazine. So it was an easy task to familiarise myself with the future. It gave a sense of certainty in an often confusing world. You might not understand your maths homework, but you knew Wogan was going to be on at 7pm on Friday.

It also led to a minor theological debate in the household. In the reality created by my extremely religious mother, the first day of the week was Sunday. The rest of the world seemed to think the first day of the week was Monday. But The Radio Times, perhaps hoping to be known as The Radical Times, went out on a limb and declared that Saturday was the first day of the week. It’s an odd exception to the general rule that TV shapes your thinking: despite the fact that in TV listings land Saturday is still the first day of the week, I don’t think I know anyone who thinks it actually is.

But I think my adoration of the RT began to fade after the deregulation of listings and the expansion to cover other channels. It wasn’t the dirty presence of ITV in my beloved magazine that so bothered me as much as the special notice the BBC were forced to display when advertising that weeks new edition.

“Other listings magazines are available.”

 Of course I knew that already. The TV Times would make an occasional surreptitious appearance in the house at Christmas to round out our festive televisual knowledge. But that familiarity was too cosy, and certainly couldn't excite me. The knowledge - suddenly revealed to me - that yet more listings magazines were out there, waiting for my loving finger tips to turn their cheap coloured paper, that knowledge created a restlessness in me that destroyed my relationship with The Radio Times. I was unsatisfied. I had itchy eyes, desperate for something new. Variety was everything. I imagined the vast array of listings magazines that might come into my life. I would now see them advertised on my occasional foray onto ITV, rubbing their interviews with minor soap-stars IN MY FACE. Oh, it could not be borne! The Radio Times lay in a neglected heap, wrap-around souvenir covers flapping slightly in a reproachful zephyr.

And then came that fateful day when I actually walked into a shop and bought another listing magazine. It was a moment of emotionally charged betrayal. I plucked TV (fill in random suffix word here) from a shelf, as well a top shelf copy of Girls Dressed as Camels to hide it inside and avoid embarrassment. I got it home and for a time the excitement continued as I looked up what was going to be on Channel 4 at 9.15 on a Thursday night. And then I realised it.

There was nothing special here. The information was the same. The paper was slightly thinner. The articles slightly less well written. The whole experience was, frankly, cheap - and not as different as I had anticipated. I took TV Whatever and threw it in the bin, this time wrapping it in Mouse Torturers' Monthly to avoid seeing the condemnation in the eyes of the bin men. I went back to the sofa, scooped up my neglected Radio Times and sat it on my lap. It was the TV listings magazine for me, despite the riches available out there in the world. Other listings magazine were available, but my heart did not want them.

But something had changed. The innocence had gone. I had betrayed The Radio Times, and even if it forgave me, I could not forgive myself. I put it back down, smoothed some digestive biscuit crumbs from the face of Marcus Tandy from Eldorado, and then - with great tenderness - placed a cushion over it and left the room, never to return.

FACTS HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE BORED.