Multi-channel living

This is no doubt terribly old hat for many people but here in the wilds of Cumbria where we like things simple it's quite a turn up for the books. The SKY man has been and gone, the digibox card has arrived and we are now officially a multi-channel household.

For the time being there's an element of 'new toy' excitement about it all. The rest test will be in the longer term to see how we come to use what is a 50-fold or more increase on the number of channels we've had to date.

It's fair to say that the majority of satellite channels don't offer programming that can match the terrestrial channels when they're at their best. The advantage comes from having a wider choice of programming 24/7 which should in theory offer something of some interest at more or less any time whereas the standard four channels could often fail on this score.

Having become used to watching no television during the duration of my trip I'm not feeling a great desire to start now. I've enjoyed a few hours of different channels so far and I suspect being able to to sit down when it suits me and being able to put the news straight on or some other programme I'll find of interest will be an advantage. I can't see myself spending hours a day in front of the goggle box though. I've got my PC for that!