I am Traumatised by the Television of Today

Now, as we know, my house is a hotbed of intellectual fermentation at all times.  Dorothy Parker, we spit on your frivolous ways.  Sartre, you are an uter wet and a weed. etc.

But every now and again one has to have a few hours off from the relentless pace of philosophizing and the grind of thinking deep thoughts like:

• Whither the pair to my favourite purple sock/s?
• Why woodlice?
• Wheretofore the knobbishness of the local council?
• What is the point of Garibaldi biscuits when I haven’t seen anyone voluntarily eat one since 1980, and that was in a power cut, so I expect they thought they had got something much more interesting instead?

Friday night was not for dancing.  Nope. Jason was scamping chez orcs, Tilly was at a friend’s house, and the other two were in bed.  I had the lounge all to myself.  This happens for approximately 3 days per year, so I like to celebrate by watching absolute hogwash on the television.  Hogwash of my own choosing rather than hogwash desired by others.  I had, sadly, caught up with Glee (I LOVE this programme.  I want to marry Sue Sylvester.  She is a triumph and a goddess), and I was experiencing a patch of the doldrums before Gok’s Fashion Fix came on.  I started channel surfing.

I HATE people who channel surf.  I detest it.  Jason does it occasionally, and that, and the fact that he leaves his dirty socks in peculiar places, are probably the only two things we might ever divorce about.  The children do it incessantly.  It drives me mad.  Pick something and watch it for Cheezus’ sake.

Anyway, I thought that I would give it a go as I was alone.  I thought I would try to work out why people seem to enjoy it so much.  Sadly (or not. I couldn’t really decide), I only made it three channels up when I came across the programme Embarrassing Bodies starring Dr. Christian Jessen. OMG! OMG! WTF! OMG!

I know. I know. I am late to the party.  Everyone else I have spoken to about this has already seen it and grown weary of it.  I say in my defence that it was my first time.  I had, until this point, been entirely in ignorance of this programme.

For those of you who have not had the experience (I will not say pleasure), I will explain.  It is an hour long programme, shown at prime time on a Friday night on ITV, which is one of the major UK channels, which means everyone in the entire country can watch it should they so desire.  The premise is simple.  If you have an embarrassing illness, condition, physical problem, you simply rock up on PRIME TIME television and talk to Dr. Christian Jessen about it.  Dr. Christian then strips you down, ON PRIME TIME TELEVISION, allows the cameras to roam around freely, exposing your intimate traumas to the ENTIRE nation, and subjects you to a bunch of tests, probes and other invasive procedures, all of which are filmed.  Eventually they pronounce their verdict and off you go.

Now, I know I am not the sharpest pencil in the box, but I really, really do not understand this.

On Friday there was:

• A lady with inverted nipples who could not breast feed and who thought she was a freak.
• A lady who smelled so badly of rotting fish every time she had a period that people on buses actually moved away from her.
• A man with intense pain in his scrotal area, who thought it was affecting his ability to be a good bus driver.  He had been silent about this pain for SEVEN years.
• A lady postman who could not control the urge to pee and had been wetting herself several times a day for three days, mostly on her post round.
• A man with bad scarring on his back that embarrassed him so much he had not taken his top off in public for three years.
• A man with a big pus filled warty thing on his forehead.

All of these people were absolutely mortified with shame about their conditions, and yet rocked up on telly, whipped out their parts for inspection, and allowed cameras to film the most intimate parts of their life, all while Dr. Christian stood there, snapping his latex gloves and looking like a 1980′s shirt model for Next Directory.

I happened to switch channels just as cameras were ferretting about in Mr. Bus Driver’s scrotal region.  I stopped, mesmerised, mostly unable at first to work out what the hell I was looking at.  Then, when I realised what it was, I was pathologically unable to stop looking at it.  I kept shouting internally: ‘Look away! Turn over! Hide your eyes in case your retinas burn.’  But no.  It was like rubber necking at the site of a particularly horrible car crash.  I was transfixed.

Why? Why do these people, who I felt nothing but utter pity for, decide that after seven years of hiding in cupboards and self mortification, that the only way to resolve their problem is to whip it all out on telly? I’d rather poke my own eyes out with a stick, frankly.  I thought Britain’s Got Talent was bad enough, but this, this took the biscuit AND the tin.

I can only conclude that either:

a) they pay you shitloads of money

b) it bypasses a great deal of ridiculous faffing via the NHS

c) they pay you shitloads of money

d) they promise you can meet Ant and Dec in the ITV canteen afterwards

e) they slip mind altering drugs in your tea so you don’t remember anything about it

f) they pay you shitloads of money

It was just terrible.  Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. 

I cannot decide if my worst experience was:

a) the bus driver’s scrotum

b) watching pus being squeezed out of the man’s head boil

c) Dr. Christian’s teeth clashing with the brightness of his shirts

d) the fact that they had another doctor called Dr. Pixie something or other.  How could you trust your wonky nipples to a woman called Pixie for God’s sake?

e) the fact that I saw more flaccid penises in one hour’s worth of television than I have in the rest of my life. 

I can only thank the Lord that I do not have HD television.