I thought I’d shied away from the issue for long enough, but I could never quite get my head round going digital with the telly.
From the scant evidence I had been able to glean from various odd sources, there seemed precious little in the way of exciting programming to attract me to gawping at the box for even the shortest amount of extra time. In truth, there was nothing.
In fact, that ‘advert’, on the BBC for its channel 3 offerings is the most irritating thing on TV, and actively dissuades me from even considering watching anything on it. Strangely, it reminds me of those AIDS warning adverts from 20 years ago, or whenever it was, only with less oomph.
But discussions in our household had turned to the possibility of needing to go digital as the big turn off of terrestrial TV got under way in Cumbria.
We don’t watch much TV - not being a fan of soaps, reality TV or cookery fests eliminates about 90 per cent of what’s on offer by my reckoning - but the thought of having a blank and useless screen in the corner of the room seemed a bit of a waste.
So I cast around for information as to what might be the best choice for the Akroyd household, and soon wished I hadn’t bothered.
Do we have cable? Is a set top box the right choice? What about broadband? How about one of those ugly dishes lashed to the chimney? Virgin or Sky? 50 more channels? 200 more channels? New digital recorder? Sky+? V+? With phone line? Without? Special offers, special bundles, choice of extras… It wasn’t long before my mind was a whirl of confused information that it just couldn’t sort.
And then there were the prices.
Save this, save that. Try this, upgrade to that. Compare this, compare that.
I turned to my work colleagues for help, and it all started again, and even though I could see they were talking, nothing seemed to be computing in my brain.
Then, by chance, meandering on the internet superhighway one evening, I saw a line on my computer I could click on which promised to work out when our area would be forced into going digital.
2011, it transpires.
Thank God for that! I can put the decision on the back burner for another three years!