I remember the first time I encountered the phenomenon that was the "remote control" - I was young, guillable - I still remember the excitement when I opened a birthday present to find a Hannimex calculator, with its blue ... or was it green? ... flashing numbers ... I digress.
Anyway, there I sat on the couch snuggled up to my first boyfriend, in his parents' living room in the suburb now known as Te Atatu Peninsula - 'twas T'at North when I was on that couch. The lights were low, with the only light radiating from the TV screen - which like most TV sets in '80 New Zealand, sat pride of place in the middle of the room. Strangely, programmes flicked randomly, from one channel to the next. At first I didn't notice for whatever reason. Then slowly it dawned on me, that the channels were changing, and in 1982 Auckland, there were only two channels. This was unheard of in my own television watching sphere. The change of channel was usually precluded by a rather wide angled view of a familial bottom, and the clunkety-click either of the channel dial being turned or the very definite clunk of the pressing of channel buttons.
Slowly pushing myself up, my eyes attached to the ever changing, ghost like screen. My eyes widening with each switch. A ghost in the machine? A glitch? Someone hiding behind the set? The jiggery and pokery, perplexed and confused me.
Then after a half an hour or so of these magical shenanigans, my BATT (boyfriend at the time) disclosed the magic box. I don't recall its shape or colour, but I recall the realisation ... the world is changing.
And I suspected at that stage, one click at a time.
How wrong was I?
As an aside, and as attention spans have miniturised, this post was actually meant to be about obesity ... now where was I?
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