Tis the season to watch the telly

Tis the season to watch the telly, drink coloured drinks and eat all the sugar you daintily refuse throughout the year.

DVDs are brilliant for watching a whole season of Buffy in one sitting or weeping at the bliss of anything made by HBO, but it's not the same as turning on that box and finding something you love or hate and not being able to escape its clutches, as you scoff the box of Favourites you got for work Kris Kringle (with a K in case the religious meaning of our overeating festival offends) and thinking that perhaps you do a need space-wasting machine to get rid of your love handles, but luckily the phone is out of reach of the couch.

Even if telly is only the second most common source of on-our-own pleasure, when we watch broadcast programs, we are somehow connected with all the other people doing the same. Who hasn't watched an episode of their favourite program, complete with ads, even though the DVD of the series is right next to the TV. There's something about knowing that hundreds or thousands or millions (if you're watching Masterchef) of other people are sitting in their living room, wearing their underwear and eating straight out of the microwave dish, just like you.

But I don't want to do it anymore, cos telly has become so blah.

I kept watching so that I could  read the gorgeous and addictive commentry of Catherine Deveny (on Saturday) and Marieke Hardy (on Thursday) in The Age. Marieke made me proud to love Matt Preston, Catherine convinced me that Nigella's food porn is worth a watch and, I think, one of them made me watch an episode of Wife Swap.

But in one damned week, they both said goodbye.

Marieke's last Green Guide musings.
Catherine's last A2 hoorah that summed up what I was feeling far too well.

Ok, it's the wonderfully written abuse that I will miss. Who could forget Ms Hardy's "If I had to choose between sitting through another episode and having a threeway with the Two Ronnies I'd be stripping off and telling the world it was goodnight from me before sauntering back to the boudoir. And yes, I'm fully aware one of them is dead."

I'm going to miss you both.