FOR ME, IT WAS ALL DOWN TO what I saw on the box (which was a lot) — and this extended too to the arenas of action: a fantastic littering of such beautiful and extraordinary interiors, not one of which had I ever set foot in, nor even so much as glimpsed at first hand. And I yearned to haunt and inhabit every single one of them
I was highly covetous of all I saw — I suppose because I was an only child doomed to walk this earth in short trousers and Start-Rite sandals and inhabit a bedroom which sported only a divan, my mother’s dressing table (which I didn’t understand either) and a wardrobe surmounted by suitcases and unexplained and mysterious, never opened, dusty and lumpish brown paper parcels, baled up with rough twine and knots.
I was also idle, and therefore more than content to feed upon whatever happened to come my way. I still believe to this day that had I been the scion of fantastically rich, indulgent and stupid parents, I would never have done a single day’s work throughout my life, but would instead have spent every waking moment lolling about in a revolving succession of all these miraculous places that television had allowed me to peep into.
These days, such a lifestyle would elevate me to the much envied and highly regarded status of an “influencer”, trailing in my wake the commensurate millions of “followers”, each quite lost in lust and desperate to emulate my every vacuous action. Back then, of course,
