It's a TV Jim, but not as we know it....

What big TVs looked like the last time I had one...

So I recently purchased a new laptop and collected it on a Friday about two weeks ago at the Tottenham Court Road branch of PC World. I originally bought the computer online and after a few calls to customer services and a long walk in the rain to several different stores, I finally managed to pick it up. After that long-winded and traumatic experience, I did not actually turn the computer on until last weekend. It has been sometime since I bought a laptop and I was very surprised as to how advanced these pieces of machinery have become.

After years of using the same laptop that has faithfully served me well, I needed to buy a new one. This is, of course, because my old computer has got so slow, that it is quicker to write in this blog with a pen and paper than type online. Some technophobes would say this would be no bad thing, but after waiting so long for a document to open, I often just give up and go make a cup of tea instead. Yep, I was ready to join the technological revolution and get some up-to-date hardware. Also, my husband wanted a new computer and his patience is even shorter than mine, so we bought the laptop TOGETHER.

This big joint financial purchase is like a precursor to having children (except with less forgoing of sleep, nappies and responsibility). I reckon that if we can buy a computer together and keep our bonsai tree alive, then we can graduate to a pet and then maybe be trusted enough to care for a mini-human. The jury is still out on our bonsai tree. I am not sure it likes us that much, as it droops a lot and sheds brown leaves all over our coffee table no matter how much I water it.

So, off we popped to our nearest computer store: PC World in Brixton. As soon as we entered the store, I felt uneasy for a number of reasons. First of all, without being rude about Brixton (I do love the area), the PC World in the area feels like one of those stores where you could buy a piece of electronics technology and then be robbed immediately after walking out the door with it in your arms. Don’t get me wrong, Brixton is no way near as dangerous as it used to be and it is a seriously funky and interesting place. It has a lot of great restaurants and a really cool cinema. But…it doesn't always feel so safe. Maybe I feel this way about the area, because, when we have come to the corner of Cold Harbour Lane outside the KFC restaurant, we have routinely been offered drugs.
‘Want some E? Some Charlie? Skunk?’ they ask my husband, as if he needs an illegal substance just to be able to cope with being seen with a woman as strangely dressed as me (bright coloured tights, long tangled mess of hair). Sometimes they use names for drugs that I have never even heard before. I’m not real up to date on my contemporary illegal drug lingo, what with me being someone who only really takes paracetamol when I have a headache and drinks the occasional rum and coke in a pub. Caffeine is my strongest drug of choice. The streets around the PC World store, however are free from obvious signs of drug dealing but are also poorly lit, so you have to carry your new and expensive purchase across an expanse of dark concrete parking lot. Basically, it is prime real estate for muggers.

Then there is the fact that half the stuff in the store is exactly the kind of items that juvenile, bored, frustrated and opportunistic youths were looting during the London riots about a year ago. I am not totally unsympathetic to the plight of these youths. Being young, unemployed and de-motivated in an expensive city like London during a recession has gotta suck. But none-the-less, when my husband walked into the store and exclaimed excitedly, ‘Oh my god! Look at the size of those televisions!’....All I could think was: People bothered to steal these things during the riots?! They risked getting criminal records for 32 inch plasma screen TVs! It is just a screen for god's sake! You could look out of the window for much less hassle and money!
I guess the TVs probably did not mean that much to the looters, it might have just been the idea of stealing something or taking an item that was a symbolic statement of affluence. A pair of designer shoes would probably have done just as well.

Of course I am not sure that PC World in Brixton was actually looted in the London riots last summer. It just has that sad atmosphere of a palace of treasures surrounded by city dwellers who can never gain entry to it's gilded doors. I honestly wondered how many of the giant TV screens the store has sold to the neighboring population. Brixton, like a lot of areas of London, is filled with many poor people, gaggles of students sharing houses, young professionals with flatmates, middle-class families and a few sort-of rich people. I wonder how many of them have giant plasma TVs? Brixton lately has become more trendy and gentrified, but that does not always translate into extra cash available for expensive electronics. Also, how many people have enough space on their walls for these home cinema screens?

What I was sure of, while standing in the store, was how much TVs have changed since I have owned one. Yes, that is right, I do not own a TV. I last owned one right after university when I was 21. Even then, my flatmates and I never paid the UK TV licence and so we couldn't watch live TV and only used the unit to watch DVDs (usually scifi movies or period drama series). When I lived with my close uni friends (Rosa, Bella and Dee - the names have been changed to protect the innocent!), we had one badly functioning TV that only played VCR videos. We only had one video tape: Lord of The Rings, The Two Towers. The TV sat in the kitchen and we used to turn the film on while cooking dinner and eating breakfast or even while having a break between writing essays on Greek mythology (we studied Classics at Uni). We must have watched the movie about a 100 times. I can practically recite all of Frodo's dialogue from my daily dose of Elvish drama. I have of course watched TV at my parents' house and I currently watch films on DVD on my ancient laptop, but never had I seen such big TVs in a store before. I have obviously fallen behind the times when it comes to technological advances in TV viewing. They even come in 3D now! I felt a bit like a Victorian looking at a series of brilliant new washing machines while still clutching my trusty washboard and old mangle.

My husband excitedly exclaimed, 'They are so big! Some of them are the size of a dining table! You could eat off this one!' He eventually grew tired of ogling them and we soon graduated to not-caring, 'Pff! What a waste of money.' He scoffed. 'You'd have more fun going to the cinema.' (which is now almost as expensive and also comes in 3D ironically)
Off we trotted to the laptop section. After getting lost in the 'Speaker' section and the 'Digital Camera' aisle and then passing the 'High Performance Laser Printer' shelf, I began to feel a little overwhelmed. There were so many gadgets all around us and only the newest and best technology on sale. I began to feel that familiar feeling that all retailers love shoppers to feel. They wait in the stores, looking out for that moment, when you experience shopper's anxiety. Basically shopper's anxiety is when you are confronted with so much materialistic choice that you feel as if you should own it all. In fact you feel obliged to own it all. You think you might be missing out if you don't own it all. We needed all this stuff in PC World. To survive in today's technologically modern world we need to have a laser printer and some HD speakers with 3D screens and surround seismologic sound that also comes with your own personal robot who bakes eggs while whistling Christmas carols and heating your bathwater (okay, so I invented that last gadget to illustrate my point). All the electronics items lining the shelves were being marketed as if they were essential items that we must have. It was extremely important that we own iPhones, earphones, speakers, a TV, iPads, Galaxy tablets, external hard drives, bluetooth headsets and something called a smartpen and gaming mouse.

Except none of the above looked like they were built to last. If I buy a toaster, I want it to last a good 10 years (I need to have my bread crispy, my friends!) or more. I don't see the point of upgrading every couple of years. I feel the same about my laptop. I don't want to constantly to be having to buy the latest technology. I want these items to be built to be used over years of time. It would save me money and definitely be more environmentally friendly. Of course, I know that computer manufacturers probably don't care about this and PC World just want my money. But I also don't like feeling that I need all these gadgets to survive modern life. Sure, I don't want to go back to the washboard and mangle (I like my washing machine) and I am not a technophobe, but there is no need for gadgets to be instigated into every area of our lives. We should be able to mix our own cake batter with a bowl and wooden spoon instead of one of those posh electric cake mixers that I see advertised in cook books all the time. Put some pumping arm-action and effort into that cake for god's sake!

I guess I am just in favour of being choosy. Some things I do the old fashioned way, others I use technology for. I wrote this blog post on paper first in a pretty little notepad while lying on a blow up mattress at my parents' flat. Technology allows me to distribute my thoughts to a wider audience. Otherwise, each and every one of you would be getting an individual blog post in a letter from me delivered by Royal Mail. So while my husband and I use our new laptop, do let me know if you'd like an old fashioned hand-written letter, I'm getting out my feather quill pen!

Oh, and since starting this post, our bonsai tree is looking a lot worse for wear and may actually have died. I guess a pet is off the cards then.....