The moral superiority of those who don’t have television
This is my column in The Malta Independent on Sunday, yesterday.
The Times has carried an interview with two university lecturers whose household includes two teenage sons and no television. Reading it, I experienced the same high level of irritation I do when hearing about parents who refuse their children all access to sweets and who cater for birthday parties with things made out carrots, muesli and brown bread instead of icing sugar and Smarties.
They need to be told that depriving their children of these fundamentals of childhood does more harm, both temporary and permanent, than cartons of Jelly Tots and hours of cartoons.
These particular parents are very smug about their decision never to have a television in their home. They see it as a very good thing and that it makes them better parents than the rest of us, who think that television is an excellent and useful device and that every home should have at least two to avoid rows.
They believe that their sons have reaped tremendous advantages by being brought up in a house without a television. Well, they can take it from me that they are wrong and that their sons probably resent their decision but will not tell them so for many years yet. Those boys will probably grow up to fill their own homes with enormous flat-screens or whatever the latest might be in 2030, in the same way that children who are refused sweets grow up to eat them constantly.
These two people, Maria and Michael Zammit, are both in their 50s and so were not raised on a childhood television diet of Sesame Street, The Monkees, Road Runner, the Banana Splits and Tom & Jerry, as I and others in our 40s were just a decade later, when televisions came into wider use and Malta began its own broadcasting service. So they probably think they are bookish, academic and that they read a lot as children because they weren’t distracted by cartoons.
In an attempt at replicating the same results with their sons, they have deprived them of television and think that this has been a successful move because one son reads four books a month.
What is surprising about this subscription to false logic is that one of them teaches philosophy and so should have been able to work out that the presumed correlation between television and reading is a fallacy. I did not make the same mistake myself, because my own experience taught me that enjoyment of television and reading are not mutually exclusive.
Both television and reading were celebrated as equally worthwhile pursuits in the household in which I grew up, and I have loved both from the earliest age. I read a great deal and I also watch a lot of television, and I can’t understand why some people imagine that the one is a substitute for the other.
It is not necessary to live in a house without television so as to read four books a month. This is like saying that you don’t sew because you garden, or vice versa. Or that you don’t cook because you play golf. The two have nothing to do with each other. Nor does the absence of a television necessarily make a person a reader when he or she is otherwise inclined. This ‘either television or reading’ business is nonsense.
The assumption that television is a negative thing is equally silly. Michael and Maria Zammit are so busy telling themselves they can live without television that they have not stopped to work out how there is more to be gained than lost from having one in their home. They can make their own choices but where their sons are concerned, they have made the wrong one for the simple reason that the more children and teenagers are exposed to in terms of general knowledge and contemporary culture, the better. Television keeps you current. The Zammits know this at some level because, by their own admission, when there is a big world event or an important football match they rush round to their own more enlightened parents to watch their television.
Not having a television because you never got round to buying one is one thing. But making a virtue and a religion out of not having a television set in your home is another thing altogether. When people get obsessive like that, I begin to wonder exactly what it’s all about. Just buy one of the ruddy things, I want to tell them – go on, what’s the big deal? Switch it on when you want to watch it, and keep it switched off when you don’t. But they’ve made it into a big deal. Not having a television ends up becoming a bigger deal than having one.
Much was made of the fact that the Zammit household is full of books of all sorts. This fact was directly linked to the other fact that the household contains no television. This, as the philosophy lecturer in the household should know, is called a non sequitur. Our household is full of books of all sorts, too, but it also contains a large flat-screen television and, until I removed it because I hated its shape, my own personal television which I kept on most of the day while I worked, switching between channels. It will be replaced forthwith because getting rid of it was a bad mistake. Some people like to play music while they work, but I find the television more interesting, and I miss it badly now that I have to move to another room when I want to watch it.
I cannot bear it when intellectual snobs speak ill of television and talk as though it is the preserve of the mentally challenged while all others read books and have intelligent conversations or play Scrabble. The minds of the truly intelligent take them down all sorts of roads and they will never shut off available options. To turn your back on television, that blessed invention that has changed the world for the better, with its myriad benefits for relatively little outlay, is by definition an unintelligent decision. It is quite possible to be intelligent in some areas but at the same time not intelligent generally – to be very academic, for instance, but then not be able to see the wood for the trees. I know a few people like that.
Alfred Sant is a notorious example of this, and I mention him only because he is another one who always wore like a badge of honour the fact that he never had a television. It was one of the things that marked him out for failure as a politician: not having a television flags up your sense of disengagement from the world around you, your lack of interest in contemporary culture, however much you might protest to the contrary. If you can’t see why a television is essential, then you’re a political non-starter.
The essence of intelligence is curiosity. When somebody tells me that they have no television and that they can’t see why they should have one, it is as though they have told me that they never read the newspapers or buy books or magazines ‘because they don’t have time to read’. I mark them down as not being particularly bright even if there is all sorts of other evidence that on the face of it tells me they are. Really intelligent people keep an open mind about things.
Michael and Maria Zammit clearly feel superior in saying that they do not have a television because they do not ‘need’ one. Their misplaced intellectual snobbery prevents them from seeing that their reasoning is no better than that of people who do not have books in the house because they think they are pointless.
“It started through indifference, a decision of carelessness,” the woman of the house, who teaches Latin, told her interviewer. “We were so busy with setting up home and with our studies and work that it was a decision we left pending. However, we later realised what a great benefit it was.”
She does not explain exactly how or why not having a television has been such a great benefit, or why she thinks that the great benefits which accrued to her household would not have done so had she and her husband taken time out from their busy schedule to buy a television set, plug it in and ring Go or Melita. She does not even describe why she believes that there are more benefits from not having a television than from having one and watching it.
Mrs Zammit did say that she doesn’t like the way the television is the focus of many homes and that people always seem to have the television on as a sort of background noise. “I was very apprehensive of that, which is why it became a choice to do without,” she said.
I thought this astonishing. She almost certainly knows that televisions come with an on/off switch. She has, after all, been exposed to them. The choice is not between not having a television at all and having one that is the focus of the home and on all the time. The choice is between switching it on and switching it off.
Another thing: it is not television which prevents people from talking to each other, but people who put on the television when they don’t want to talk. If they had no television, they would still not talk. They would go off and do something else. They might, for example, bury their head in a book or newspaper. Perhaps the members of the Zammit household are in the habit of chatting about their day while reading one of their four books a month, but somehow, I doubt it. If anyone tries to talk to me while I’m reading, I become tetchy and irritated. I don’t imagine they are any different.
In a flood of non sequiturs, Mrs Zammit found the space to include another two or three, saying that her household is more in touch with reality than those with televisions because it is always full of newspapers of all sorts, and that newspapers engage one’s intelligence while television manipulates viewers and feeds them what it wants to feed them.
That’s more ‘either or’ thinking: this time, either television or newspapers.
Our household is knee-deep in newspapers and magazines – you could say that I have a professional interest in the medium – but this does not mean that I don’t watch the television news. In the ongoing Libyan crisis, for example, newspapers have been no substitute for the immediacy of news footage on the international networks. And why should it be either or, in any case? Why not reap the benefits of both once we are fortunate enough to have access to both?
We’re speaking here of people who say that they are not against technology because they have embraced the internet and personal computers. This makes their hostility towards television even stranger. I think it is all based on misconceptions about what television really is.
“At best, television informs you, whereas reading forms you. At worst, television informs you badly. Reading doesn’t have any cons; if it doesn’t engage you, then you stop. It’s hard to do that with television. Because it’s a passive act you can sit and watch and daydream at the same time,” Michael Zammit told his interviewer.
This reasoning can be torn to shreds by any one of his undergraduate students, but still the Zammits persist in thinking that they are one up on everyone else. Their friends, they say, think they are “courageous” because they want to be like them and do away with television, but they are addicted and can’t.
What tosh. We’re speaking of adults here, adults with free will and a remote-control. If they don’t want to watch television, they can just switch it off. If they want to watch it, they switch it on. That’s what normal people do. There’s no need to talk like recovering alcoholics who can’t have a can of beer in the house in case they can’t resist the urge to drink it.
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I felt exactly the same when I read this article. I respect the opinion of Mr & Mrs Zammit. Hopefully they will respect mine, in that I would refuse my children to talk to, or exchange views, with their children; and that I would ask the University to remove the Philosophy lecturer if any of my children are in his class.
I really cannot understand how you can feel that you are making a better decision than the Zammits at refusing to have a television in their household when you refuse to have your children mingle with his, or to go as far as to ask the University to remove him as a lecturer.
Have you ever been to one of his lectures? I’d honestly much rather have my kids do without television (when there is the internet with all the live streaming and everything) than to have them take a philosophy course at the university in which Michael Zammit was not a lecturer.
This is ludicrous. Michael Zammit is a brilliant lecturer who inspires his students to think and encourage them to learn in a positive and intriguing manner. The fact that he does not own a television does not make a difference – I will still look forward to attending his lectures, as I always have. Your children would be deprived of a great teaching experience if you were indeed to do so.
I’m great friends with the son, Gabriel, and i know Mr. and Mrs. Zammit. They have done a great job raising their children, and Gabriel is a very intelligent boy and a great friend. Not having a television hasn’t done any harm to him nor his younger brother. You not wanting your children to mix with Mr. Zammit’s is just silly because they are amazing people and very smart.
Aristotle must have been have been gritting his teeth so hard that he may have caused yesterday’s tremors.
Daphne
Is-sens ta’ superjorita ghandu hafna forom u ghamliet. Hawn min per ezempju ihossu superjuri ghax m’ghandux Facebook! Jew hawn min ihossu superjuri li ghandu blogg.
Jigifieri mhux kull sens ta’ superjorita hu necessarjament hazin moralment jew zbaljat tattikament.
Nahseb li l-koppja Zammit ghamlet ghazla tajba li ma jkolliex televizjoni. Jien per ezempju kwazi bhalhom ezatt ghax alavolja ghandi wiehed mitfi dejjem. Barraminhekk minn xi sena l hawn iddecidejt li ma nixtrix aktar gazzetti (qabel kont nixtri n-Nazzjon/Mument w it-Times/Sunday Times). Sibtni ahjar u ma tlift assolutament XEJN!!
Jekk it-television tieghek dejjem mitfi, allura qed tthallas il-licenzja u lis-service provider ghal xejn. That’s not much of a good bargain.
Appuntu u ghandek ragun! Hu precisament ghalhekk li l-koppja Zammit ghamlet ahjar minni ghax jien qed inhallas il-licenzja ghalxejn!! Fil-fatt nahseb li wasal iz-zmien li ma nibqax inpaxxihom. Illum stess nikkancella kollox! Grazzi Dee talli gibtni f’sensija!
Gaddafi, il-licenzja mhux int biss thallasha ghalxejn ghax thalli it-TV mitfi. Anki dawk kollha li jixgheluh qed ihallsuha ghalxejn.
Sar iz-zmien li titnehha.
Fejn taf li ma tliftx xejn jekk ma taqrax il-gazzetti?
Ma kellikx ghalfejn tghidilna li ma tarax television, ghax tidher. Hu mil-isem li ghazilt. Ma ghandi ebda dubju. Ibqa sejjer hekk gaddafi, hekk jew hekk mil-facebook kollox tkun taf x’inhu jigri.
What a load of bollocks…
Whilst I realise that where we come from (Latin / the history of Philosophy) is very much a part of what we are today, what we are today and where we are going is very much what goes on on TV. And what goes on on TV is very much where we are heading.
How can one replace the experience of Obama’s live election, Kennedy’s live assassination, man’s live first walk on the moon, the live toppling of the Berlin Wall, or Saddam’s statue, operation Desert Storm, or the overwhelming live coverage of 9/11, with a written paragraph in tomorrow’s printed daily or a report on the internet, even with video attached?
What intellectual in his or her right frame of mind would not only NOT actively seek to expose his child to the world of live current events but, actually, actively DENY the experience; not because the household can’t afford a €50 TV set, but out of snobbery.
And I’m still waiting for books and magazines to deliver the audio-visual experience of RAI’s Quark, La Storia Siamo Noi, or any of the BBC’s, the History Channel’s, the Biography Channel’s, or LA 7’s most excellent documentaries. And that’s not touching on an interest in pop culture, by which, in my humble opinion, every intellectual should be, even if mildly, intrigued; if anything because it affords the best, most current case study of humanity.
May I suggest to those who do not find TV intellectually challenging that they watch TVtalk on RAI3 on Saturday afternoons. I think it all depends on how one reacts to the available media.
Alfed Sant always had a TV.
[Daphne – And said he didn’t.]
How right you are!
Spot on, Daphne! I could hardly bear reading the article in question in The Times, what with the self-righteous attitude of those two people, who happen to be university lecturers at that.
I also found it rather contradictory that they said something to the effect that having a television in the room discourages conversation, and yet they are happy to all watch DVDs on indidivual computers … with their headphones on. Not quite conducive to conversation, is it?
self righteous = university lecturers seems to go together at the moment I currently read on my Kindle, paperbacks, magazines while watching TV and doing the daily “crap” on the computer. When I was at infant school in the early 70s we had TV, and I had a reading age of 15 at 7, with all those Penguin books which I soaked up like a sponge and never stopped my love of the printed word.
I still love the Banana Splits.
I faintly remember ‘qoq o jungo’ shouted out during the Banana Splits .
Article just about perfect. I don’t know if photos tell a few other revealing stories: see the photo accompanying the article (http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110423/local/Opting-for-life-without-television.361838).
Judging by the sullen look on their faces, they’re not exactly the epitome of a fun loving family, are they?
Great article. The words that come in mind to describe these people are: smug, snob and codswallop.
I stopped reading that article halfway through. All I had to do is study the family picture attached to it to confirm my suspicions. The boys’ facial expressions spoke a thousand words. I’m sure they were saying to themselves, ”Why do we have to sit here? How embarrassing.”
Same thoughts. They look so miserable.
….and he brags about it continuously. This guy used to teach me at school. Not a lesson would go by without bragging that he doesn’t have a TV set. When he used to say this, I always thought he was an unmarried intellectual who stays locked in his study all day, with no interest in what’s going on in the rest of the world and going out only when he has to give a lecture. Little did I know that he has children who have to live with that decision.
The posture and general demeanour of those two poor boys says it all really.
I don’t have a TV.
I watch everything online or on PC.
These people have internet and therefore have access to more than is available through the aerial or cable.
http://delicast.com/tv/Malta
Or get a UK or US vpn and watch live tv online
http://vpnuk.net/services-uktv.html
Does that mean the Zammits never watch Xarabank?
For small mercies….
Aren’t people who don’t have a TV supposed to have loads of kids?
I think that Daphne only chose to discuss this issue in her column as she had no other material seeing as the article was only published the day before. I think that she was wrong to say that university lecturers (one of whom has a doctorate) are not bright just because they choose not tohave a television in their home. It’s a lifestyle choice , they did try to impose their views in the article, nor were they ‘snobbish’ towards anyone who owns a television.
As a frequent contributor to one of the island’s most popular newpapers Daphne would have done well to demonstrate more maturity in her arguments.
She seems to imply that not owning a television diminishes one’s intellectual capabilities. In reality, most intellectuals of the past had no access to television or mass media of any sort, so I believe that this argument is, in Daphne’s eloquent diction is a lot of… “tosh!” .
Daphne is free to blog about anything she wants to. Makes a change from the usual.
I’d be more concerned if the Zammits had TV but no internet.
I am bang up to date with all there is to know.
I never watch TV here because I don’t speak Maltese.
All a TV is for is displaying content.
A computer screen is the same.
Ask Zammit what DVD titles they watch.
Might be interesting stuff.
If internet access is no worse than TV, why make a virtue out of not owning a TV?
Internet use is solitary, like reading, whereas TV viewing is usually communal. That’s the one thing they’ve missed.
If they simply prefer reading, then why don’t they just say so?
Is it the choice of their kids, too? No they were not trying to impose their views, they were looking down on us Philistines and being smug because they think they know better.
No, Daphne is implying that it is silly to deny someone something that is a source of information. Had you really believed in intellectual capabilities you would have known that intellectuals can analyse the information that is presented to them and make up their own minds about its validity, interpretation and what to do.
In effect these parents are sending out the message that reading is boring compared to television and that they have no faith in their children’s rational capabilities and character.
You probably find analysing and opinion-forming a labourious process and therefore prefer it when somebody else does it for you.
Only one of the “lekcerers” has a PhD? Università ta’ kwalità ghall-istudenti. Yeah right.
I didn’t know The Independent is one of Malta’s most popular papers. I thought it had gone down Lehen is-Sewwa Alley.
Tikber u titghallem, ara.
As to the implication “that not owning a television diminishes one’s intellectual capabilities” – why, of course, how cannot not owning a television not diminish one’s intellectual capacity to not discern what is not and what is not what’s not but is?
After all, is not living without the Box, not living outside it?
Warmest regards,
Pandora’s Padlock
Jonkella kitbet li kitbet frott l-ghira tan-nisa. Billi Maria Zammit hi lecturer l-universita mentri Daphne mhijiex allura Maria hadet il-forka u giet attakkata bl-addocc. Nispera li mhux hekk il-kaz.
[Daphne – Tghidli xejn kemm nghir ghan-nies, specjalment ghal xi hadd bhal Maria Zammit. Trid tkun il-vera – halli ma nghidix biex ma noqodux nitkellmu dwar il-background socjali – biex tahseb li ssir lecturer l-universita tkun ‘ilhaqt’.]
Nahseb li hawnhekk Daphne ghamlet auto-goal kbir. Il-familja Zammit huma sa certu punt “strambi” … imma li tattakkahom hekk trid tkun …. heqq, ma nafx ara u ahjar ma nzid xejn. Lil koppja Zammit nafhom mill-Practical School of Philosophy fejn ma jmorrux ic-cwiec.
Kieku Daphne tobsor kemm huma rispettati kienet tahsibha darbtejn qabel ma tikteb li tikteb. Imqar ukoll ghax hu Michael Zammit kien fl-antik il-president taz-zghazagh tan-Nazzjonalisti. Imqar ghal din ir-raguni kien missha qaghdet lura …
[Daphne – Ir-ragunament tieghek huwa totalment bazwi. Tidher li tmur il-Practical School of Philosophy, u dan muhiex sarkazmu.]
Grazzi talli wegibtni b’tali mod li turi li hadt ghalik!
[Daphne – Ma hadt ghalija xejn. Xi kultant nistghageb bil-‘culture gap’ li hawn bejn il-Maltin stess. Dak kien il-punt li jien ghamilt.]
“Trid tkun il-vera …… biex tahseb li ssir lecturer l-universita tkun ‘ilhaqt’.”
I’m curious to know about which jobs you consider to be necessary for one to “jilhaq fis socjeta”. This is similar to the reasoning by super one hacks reading for an LLD to become a lawyer and get the infamous “Doctor” title.
Iccekkja sew Gaddafi, ghax nahseb li mort zmerc. Michael Zammit ma kienx President tal-MZPN.
Jien ghedt “hu Michael kien president tal-MZPN” u mhux “Michael kien il-president ..”
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=2HiUMlOz4UQ&vq=large
This is also TV. This short clip should easily show that reading and TV are no substitutes, but are rather complimentary to each other.
Exactly, TV and reading are complementary to each other; one can be introduced to new authors and titles via TV or one can decide to see a TV programme because one knows about the author or has read the title.
As for news channels, tomorrow’s newspaper is already stale; can one replace Sky’s Alex Crawford bullet-dodging reports from Misratah with a photo and an out of date report in tomorrow’s newspaper?
Of course, if you want to keep up with yesterday’s and the day-before yesterday’s news there is always tonight’s TVM/ONE/NET news bulletins plus all the tittle-tattle you can digest from around the village pump (yesterday’s water-cooler).
I am in total agreement. On the subject of books, the major local bookshops were taken over by a single entity and now book choice by genre is a thing of the past. All books are now displayed by author in alphabetical order. Choosing a book by a new (to me) author is nigh impossible .
Mela sew, dawn ghandhom l-internet u allura access ghal kull tip ta’ informazzjoni, verifikabbli u mhix, lecita jew immorali….li trid. Dik OK. Ghandhom access ghall-gazzetti – bhal dak li qallu dawn tista tafdhom li kollha u dejjem qed jghidu l-verita. Imma t-TV, le…u jekk ikollu bzonn, ir-ragel imur jarha ghand il-qraba. Mhux hekk nibqghu! Dawn kummidji mhux high moral ground.
With broadband why have a TV at all? My kids all have their own laptop and watch anything they want on it, we hardly ever use the TV any more except for the occasional football match. TV is so 2010.
I’m watching a movie (mute), reading your blog, listening to Layla and Bell Bottom Blues, and cooking.
Those two really should get a life.
When I read the article in The Times, I just couldn’t believe the utter nonsense I was reading.
Imsieken it-tfal.
Like
The looks on the boys’ faces say it all.
If your lifestyle depends on your relatives or friends then something is wrong. I wouldn’t want to have to go to a relative to watch my favourite football team play. If I decide not to own a TV, then I will definitely not make use of it at all because if I believe in something I will stick to it.
Oh I know the feeling. My brother-in-law, also a university lecturer, deprived his children, now both fully grown, of a television. He too reasoned like these two people. The first thing his children did when visiting their grandparents and other relatives was rush to the television room. And this was not the only matter he looked down upon but also ostracised smokers and boasts to this very day that his children do not touch tobacco. Little does he know they are both chain smokers.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110423/local/Opting-for-life-without-television.361838
[Dr Zammit, an avid Manchester United supporter, gives a practical example of how not having a TV does not prevent him from watching football. “I simply watch the games at my father’s or at a friend’s house,” he said. He does the same thing during the World Cup or if there is a debate or an interview he particularly wants to see.]
I sadly surmise that above quote might be an example of contemporary philosophical logic as taught at the University of Malta by the learned lecturer.
Maybe that Dr.Zammit is acquainted with Confucianism.
Confucius said that “everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it”. Confucius also said “be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes”.
A mistake you are ashamed of is a crime?
The day I give a damn what Confucius says about anything then you have permission to shoot me.
And try telling me he does not flick channels at half time……
Confucius say: Man without TV is like squirrel without nuts.
Such silliness! I was brought up in a house where we – the children – watched, and enjoyed, television and managed about four books a week, rather than four books a month. So much for not having television around.
Come on, what’s wrong about having some form of entertainment?
I bet they’re vegetarians too..
Probably not. I’m vegetarian, but enjoy TV, reading, internet, music, and much more. They have more in common with the Amish than with your average vegetarian.
“I simply watch the games at my father’s or at a friend’s house,” he said. He does the same thing during the World Cup or if there is a debate or an interview he particularly wants to see”
What a typical, hypocritical pseudo-intellectual. I just love the way he objects to a television set in his house but has no qualms about being an inconvenience to others because of his choices and self-imposed limitations.
The ban is pointless in this day and age, given the fact that one only needs a laptop, an internet connection and some know-how when it comes to proxies to watch live telly.
So somebody is a philosophy lecturer and does not have one functioning television set at home. This is very understandable. The interest in philosophy and the presumed lack of interest in television are compatible symptoms of the same medical condition.
I will not propose anything. There is no known cure to date for the condition anyway.
The moral superiority of those who do have their own blog and those who don’t, lol .
The ‘University of Malta’ is ranked 1623 internationally in the 4icu.org world university ranking 2010. Possibly that is why their vetting process allows Neanderthals to lecture such ‘tosh’.
http://www.4icu.org/reviews/3235.htm
1,579 on 10,218
Not too bad.
And on the European ones? The University of Malta is a big expensive joke. I know it, Juanito Camilleri knows it, Richard Muscat knows it, but no one will admit it. Corporate loyalty above intellectual honesty.
Of course, having no TV set, the Zammits are deprived of Bondi+ and of Xarabank! Horror of horrors!
They’re available online.
http://www.maltastar.com/pages/r1/ms10dart.asp?a=15154
“The protest was being held after a gay couple were ousted out of a pup because they shared a kiss at the bar.”
tefghuni ‘l barra mill-pupp qallec…
The guiding principle should be in when, how, why and what for one makes use of a knife. That is what makes wo/men.
Ahna kollha bookworms u d-dar ghandi zewg kompjuters, laptop, zewg televixins u se nixtri iehor ghas-salott.
Mhux bizzejjed tghid ”ghax jaqra erba’ kotba fix-xahar”. Skont x’jaqra, kemm fihom pagni, kemm trid hsieb ghalihom u kemm taf taqra tghaggel!
It-tifel tieghi ta’ 10 snin jaqra ktieb ta’ Alan Blade kull jumejn u jara t-televixin, jilghab bil-kompjuter, jaghmel il-homework, jistudja u dejjem jigi minn ta’ quddiem fil-klassi. U din ma narahiex xi big deal imma hila kif tqassam il-hin.
Ma nafx dawn il-professuri!
U bilhaqq … Michael Zammit dak li qaleb il-Bhagavadgita ghall-Malti?
Kif tghid Alice: It’s getting stranger and stranger.
PS I have my own antennae which says Daphne was away for Easter. Oh the wonders of the internet.
[Daphne – I was not.]
She was working on ‘Taste’. She said as much.
[Daphne – I wasn’t.]
She was making figolli.
[Daphne – I have never made one in my life.]
She was writing Karm’s acceptance speech for Humanitarian of the year
I’m sure I read on Maltastar that she was out flying on a broomstick, chasing little children to put in her oven…. for Taste magazine of course.
The Times article mentioned above still irritates me beyond belief, especially the way they related to people having a television to some kind of mindless zombies, who can’t function properly without a television. They had mentioned something along the lines that they had noticed that people didn’t know what to do or talk about the second they turned off the television.
It just seems like Dr. Zammit can’t trust himself to own a TV set and not watch TV unnecessarily. I watch United as often as possible (and occasionally other footie) and that’s my only regular TV.
I’ll take in a documentary or ‘Emergency in the Cockpit’ programme if I get the chance too and maybe a high-level quiz and the occasional film too just for entertainment, but I’m never enslaved by a TV.
I was brought up in a household where as a family we watched the San Remo festivals, world cup matches, old BBC serials and Walt Disney films together. It was so much fun. I pity the Zammit kids for missing out on the sort of family fun that is what fond memories later on in life are made of.
Daphne, is this interview available on timesofmalta.com? I tried quite a few search terms using search function, but nothing comes up. Thanks.
[Daphne – Yes, it’s on line. I think somebody posted a link here.]
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110423/local/Opting-for-life-without-television.361838
Thanks for the link. I read it and watched the interview. A very, very normal family indeed.
And the level of spoken English just says it all – they are not exposed to the colloquial aspect of the language, no matter how many books they’ve read so far. At best, it only makes them very good at writing English and putting all the commas and exclamation marks in the appropriate part of the sentence.
In 1981 we watched hours and hours of Run Rabbit Run on Xandir Malta. Would not have missed it for anything. Eileen Montessin was at her forte then.Tempus fugit !
I only read the first few paragraphs of the article and felt totally revolted by the superiority and smugness shown by the Zammits. I could not understand their logic for the simple reason that when I was young I used to watch television, read, play the piano and cook with my mum and dad, activities which I still enjoy to this very (save for cooking with my parents due to my being very much of age nowadays.
Through my television-watching, I learnt Italian so well that I got an A grade at A level without actually learning grammar at school (of course, I had literature classes) and my English diction improved drastically only through watching BBC programmes which Xandir Malta used to broadcast in the early 80s (“Fawlty Towers” springs to mind but there could have been others).
I can never thank my parents enough for allowing me to watch television.
And all I can say that in those dark 1980s, watching television gave me hope for a better world and gave me an idea of what life in the West was all about. Watching television was for me the gateway to the future. And, in a certain way, it still gives me a lot of information which, otherwise, I wouldn’t have access to.
I pity those poor Zammit children.
Just watched the video of the interview on timesofmalta.com and right next to it there is a photo of the poor kids.
Now I’m no psychologist or body language expert but the photo makes me a little uncomfortable. I feel sorry for the boys.
While respecting their opinion, this article was exactly what I was thinking while reading the interview.
Maybe they have computers… I don’t have a TV – I haven’t had one for a year now. I just use the net instead. I don’t have to endure never-ending adverts and can watch anything I please any time I please. My guess is that TV as we know it will be dead within 10 years…
Lighten up Daphne…im sure Voltaire did not have any Television at home either.
“Fundamentals”….sure sure, keep em coming you hear? thats very good … ;)
[Daphne – ‘Voltaire didn’t have a television’? That’s logical reasoning. What you should ask yourself is whether he would have had one had he been around now. Or whether not having one makes these two people Voltaire. I find it very difficult to lighten up when I see children bullied into submission by their utterly unreasonable parents, who appear to believe that one’s offspring are a laboratory experiment. Had these two not had children, there would have been no story and no newspaper report. Surely you can see that, because nobody gives a damn whether two adults choose not to have a television.]