Oh the Irony! TV number TEN.

The TENTH TV

I have realised I have not told you about TV ten.

On the day the filming was done last year, a third of the living room was cleared, the sofa resurrected for the day, the grand kids came round, sat on it for the family album and we all played happy families for the cameras.

That afternoon the filming ended, the stuff ALL came back in.  That bit you know.  The day the van came to take the stuff out the neighbours put in an appearance to see what was going on.  To be fair they were also checking nothing was amiss as a huge van turned up and starting emptying the house.  Fair enough - good neighbours.  Anyway, a fact forgotten by all but myself and one neighbour was that five years ago Imelda won a TV.  Wonderful, fantastic, lovely.  The TV was the dogs' danglies - no really.  This one was a conference Internet TV as such it was H U G E.  It was designed for conference rooms and I believe was a 52" or bigger.  I have never seen one that big to be fair.  The thing weighed a ton and came with a stand which also weighed a ton.

Did I say it was HUGE.  Please trust me on this it was a massive, huge, big, enormous, large, over-sized, grand TV.  OK so you get the picture.  We had to pick it up in my car.  It took two hefty gents sweating like gorillas grunting and swearing to get it in the car and again two to get it out again.

When we got it to Imelda's house we had a slight issue. - No room at the Inn!  Nowhere to put the flipping thing.  So to summarise, as he already had a room full of stuff which he has collected over the past fifty years in the living room - including eight box TVs which were mentioned in the programme plus one small flatscreen new in a box we found a day later while we were shifting things about.  His 22ft x 25ft L shaped living room did not have any space in it to put a gorgeous new, state of the art monster flatscreen TV.  Problem!  It had to go somewhere - It certainly was not staying in my car any longer than it had to.  Oh what to do!

So Imelda spoke to his neighbour - would he mind dreadfully if he could possibly put it in the corner of his garage for a day or so until he could clear a space for it.  The neighbour was not best pleased about this but agreed for a few days.  The garage was in WALES, which is not known for its dry climate. That was over five years previously,  During those five years the Welsh weather had done its very best to be as variable as possible giving us freeze overs and boiling hot days with lots and lots of rain in between.  The neighbours garage, being just an ordinary garage designed for a car, was not heated or climate controlled - and nor was there any reason it should have been.  Mr neighbour in my opinion was extremely patient to leave it there and not complain.

Anyway when the living room was clear I remembered the TV and suggested now would be a good time to bring it into the house.  The removal people kindly offered to do this - it took the both of them sweating and grunting to lug the stand alone into the house and again to heave the TV inside.  The stand alone was about 4ft high by about 4ft wide and solid.  As it was not brought in until the rest of the stuff came in it sat in the middle of the room.  The TV itself went on the floor against a cupboard as it was too big.  Next came in the fittings and speakers and then the hard drive PC thing.

Hell.

After the film and removal men had left we plugged it in and - guess what - IT DIDN'T WORK.  It was an internet TV and Imelda has no internet but the TV part should have worked.  Totally nothing no sign of life at all when he plugged it in.  Nothing, De Nada, Zilch, Bongo Sweet Fanny Adams.  Checked the fuse - nothing.

So, because he had nine TVs taking up space (apart from a few other things), he had no room for a majorly gorgeous TV although he always intended to make room.  So the new TV sat in a damp garage for five years until there was temporary space.  It then came in to join the other nine TVs and  refused to work at all.
So there it sits taking up LOTS of space doing nothing.

For the record Imelda watches a small 12" flatscreen TV which sits on top of his 1970s large box TV( with its own cabinet doors - closed).  the other 8 box TVs and the MONSTER conference TVs are all broken. It is like a TV graveyard in there.  Any new TVs coming into the house must be TERRIFIED - no wonder the latest addition would not work.