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Friday January 5, 2007

'Murder, He Diagnosed'

The main activity of the day was, as planned, for Graham to bring a TV aerial cable down from the master bedroom, through the ceiling and into the kitchen, where we've been running the TV on an inadequate interior antenna. It wasn't planned to be the main activity, of course, because it ought to have been quite trivial. Except.

He measured meticulously, as you do, and drilled a hole through the bedroom floor. Then he repeated the process on the kitchen ceiling, took his trusty old unfolded wire coat hanger and poked it through, expecting it, after a little prodding and exploratory pushing, to appear through the kitchen ceiling. Except.

"This is strange," he said. "It looks as if there's a beam in the way. But there shouldn't be one there."

That was the last repeatable statement from him for the next hour or so. He drilled another pair of holes, prodded, and discovered yet another beam. The air went blue. He drilled another pair of holes, prodded, and... It's astonishing how much cussing one average-size Graham can produce in such situations.

It took four sets of holes, the last one drilled with the two-foot long bit that's really intended to go through masonry. He got there in the end, though, and the trusty wire coat hanger emerged from the kitchen ceiling at last. I swear it looked a little shame-faced except that it hasn't got a face, of course, and I somewhat doubt its capacity to feel shame, too. After all, how much in the way of higher sensibilities is it reasonable to expect of a wire coat hanger?

So, anyway, the coaxial cable was taped to the end of it, pulled and eased gingerly through the holes and, apart from clips and a plug thing to go on the end, we were only minutes away from having a good strong TV signal in the kitchen once more.

"Oh, well done, chicken," I said. "Shall I do us our lunch now?"

"Tea first, please. Then lunch."

I switched the little TV on to amuse me while I made up our sandwiches, just in time to register the deathless line from Dick Van Dyke in 'Murder, He Diagnosed'[1] when confronting a female terrorist armed with a suitcase nuke: "There must be a better way to express your anger."

"Oh dear," I said. "I'm not sure it was worth while going to all that trouble for drama of this quality."

"You may be right. We'll go out tomorrow and get a second Freeview box, then you'll have thirty-odd channels of similarly dubious quality entertainment to choose from while you're doing culinary things."

"It's a deal," I said as they defused the nuclear weapon with four seconds to spare. "I think that 'Murder, He Diagnosed' is past its sell-by date."

The second Freeview digital TV tuner is all part of the plan, too, making us fully digital in readiness for the big analogue switch-off next year. Not a moment too soon, either. I've manufactured far too many sandwich lunches to 'Murder, He Diagnosed' over the years for comfort.

[1] 'Murder, He Diagnosed' — yes, I know. They show 'Diagnosis Murder' and 'Murder, She Wrote' by turns on weekday afternoons on BBC TV. I get them mixed up. Live with it.