More Lapsang Souchong, your Ladyship?

I watch a lot of TV.

It’s how Lady D and I like to spend an evening, in amongst our busy round of social engagements and musical soirees.

There are several things though, that grind my gears in TV-land.

I don’t know how they do it elsewhere, but here in Australia, it’s not enough to advertise a product ONCE in a commercial break. It’s bad enough that TV stations here are allowed to run commercials for something like 13 minutes per hour, they have to run the same ads almost back to back. Add the shocking self-promotion – Channel Seven here were running ads for the upcoming Revenge approximately every 14 seconds for six months. I learnt to hate the show without ever wanting to watch it. A shame, as it’s like a version of Desperate Housewives where there’s a chance someone will kill them all.

Also, when you are forced to watch commercial TV, you get to see endless commercials for “reality” guff you don’t want to know about.

Last night it was Channel 10 banging on about the latest happenings in “Camp Biggest Loser”. That doesn’t even sound like a place, it sounds like a personal attack on an overweight homosexual.. It’s basically some show where they abuse fat people in the hope one of them dies and ratings goes through the roof. It nearly happened with some moron called K-Fed on the celebrity version, except that it’s stretching the definition of “celebrity” (but not that of “moron”). And there’s show here that is so bad I won’t even mention it. Or its overbearing mother. (You think Psycho was fiction?)

Then there’s the repeat trick.

Sorry, not “repeat”- it’s now “Special Encore Screening” here. Basically, they show two or three episodes of something new, then show a couple of repeats. If they had been doing that since TV started, we’d still be hanging out here for the next episode of Bewitched .

So, just to recap – I love TV but hate TV channels.

The answer, of course, is to watch a mixture of DVD and downloads. Life has certainly sweetened up in that regard since we added a USB interface to our TV.

So, we were shopping a few days back and Lady D picked up something we have been meaning to watch for some time: Downton Abbey.

We went to watch the first episode, and of course, I made a cuppa. As it happens, it was our own Lord Petersham blend.

Five minutes in, I suggested to Lady Devotea that Lord Petersham was the perfect tea to have with this show. BINGO! There’s an idea. Matching tea to TV!

A few minutes later, it turned out his Lordship on the show collected snuff boxes: Just like the original Lord Petersham did in his day. How’s that for synchronicity?

As an aside: Watch Downton Abbey. We are now about 4 episodes in. Apart from being superb – Maggie Smith is so cutting it’s unbelievable – they are always having tea, and the teaware is impressive. My favourite is the kettle of hot water on a hinge that they bring to the table to make the tea with. I want one.

But it brings me to the main point – matching tea to TV. From now on, I shall think about what we are watching, and find the right tea. Some are easy (Burn Notice and Lapsang Souchong for example) but some are not.

It’s a whole new adventure.