A SWITCH IN TIME...

As elderly pensioners struggling to survive on a fixed income in these difficult economic times, Mrs. Snopper and I have to watch the pennies.  And our latest austerity measure arrived recently courtesy of Sky who wrote to tell us that our subscription would be going up by another pound or two a month as from August.   Straw and camel`s back time.

So I rang up Sky and had a fairly long conversation with a lilting Scottish lassie in their Caledonian stronghold.   I told her that we were finding it difficult to sustain the Sky subscription, along with Orange broadband and BT telephones and so we thrashed out a deal which would seem to save us £30 a month or more.   Now, I can`t face life without Sky Sports, especially with the Ashes coming up in Australia this winter, so I went for their Sports `bundle,` which provides loads of programmes, sporting and otherwise, along with their own telephone service and broadband (the new hub is in the post, I`m told.)

So what`s the downside?   Well, it means I won`t be getting any of the Sky movies any more, but I think I can live with that.   You see, I doubt I have watched a movie on Sky for months, as it seems films these days are produced to appeal to the lowest common denominator, with a preponderance of films depicting violence, some of it quite extreme, endless battles, horror and too much physical and psychological aggression for my delicate tastes.  

My preference has long been for the older stuff;  films with stories, films that touch the heart and inspire the soul and I really don`t want to watch a film to be frightened out of my wits or to recoil at what I`m seeing.  I`ve noticed a tendency, which some people will doubtless complain about, for `old` films to be shown fairly regularly on Channel 4 or BBC 2 and I`m quite happy watching them - maybe a throwback to my days as a projectionist during my National Service in Germany 50 years ago when cinema was more of a craft than all the CGI stuff of today.

Anyway, I`ve made the switch and, although it may be The End of Sky movies for me, at least I can now settle down to watch stuff that I know I will enjoy......and not have to worry about what damaging effects it  may have on my ageing sensitivities.