Fourteen years ago, I received a text from my eldest son claiming he’d just found the TV face down on the sitting room floor, destroyed. I didn’t entirely buy his theory about the dogs being responsible – I discovered a football lying suspiciously near the crime scene – but it was a problem I needed to solve before my wife returned from a business trip.
That was the last time I bought a new television. It still works, but it’s small by today’s standards, to the extent that it’s impossible to read the contents of a ransom note held by a detective in a drama. As TVs have expanded, the ransom notes have got smaller; I often have to pause the programme, get up and put my nose to the screen.
