Earth-shattering events happen every day. Britain left the EU and precipitated a House of Cards-style revolution in Westminster. Donald Trump is looking increasingly likely to be the next leader of the United States. Moscow is deploying submarines with long-range cruise missiles into the Black Sea to ward off NATO.
And, in our house, we have finally got SKY TV.
Now, you may not think this is in quite the same league as, say, David Cameron resigning and Michael Gove betraying Boris Johnson in a Richard II type coup, but bear with me.
So little TV is usually watched in our house that the set was broken for 2 weeks before we even noticed. This is partly due to the fact that myself and my flatmate are either at the gym, on a Tinder date, or trying to get to bed before 9pm. But then it got cold and the Olympics is coming and my flatmate decided that she actually quite likes watching TV after all (whilst swiping Tinder, obvs).
It was a quiet Saturday night in Auckland and I was staying in with the cat.
(I'm going to own that line.)
I had scoured the TVNZ guide for free-view and was feeling understandably dejected by the offerings that awaited me: Wimbledon Highlights. The Block NZ: Girls VS Boys. Storage Wars. It was looking like I might have to turn to my trusty Frasier Series 3 box set. Then I thought, AHA! What's going on with the other channels? Might Frasier Series 4 be shown on one of them?!
And so it was that I ended up on the couch watching TV for 4 hours - possibly the longest amount of television I have watched since being a student. And it wasn't good TV; I managed to find the McDonalds of Saturday night entertainment: Female Killers: Too Close for Comfort. Fatal Vows: When Divorce Turns Murderous. And, of course, the Big Mac of Easy TV - Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
I have watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians exactly twice and both times they were going on a family holiday. Do rich people do anything else? I just do not understand the appeal of the show. It's basically watching lots of pretty people take selfies and talk about themselves whilst getting their makeup done by 5 people at once. And when they're not obsessing about themselves, they're bitching about one another and saying the word "like" too many times in every sentence. I have yet to see Kim Kardashian display any emotion other than vaguely bored. Even when she's being interviewed to camera and saying "it was so awesome that my mother bought me a gold-plated baby stroller and filled it with Chanel dummies", she looks as about as excited as a 16 year old on the checkout at Morrison's saying "that's 2.99. Did you want to buy a bag for 5p?" I've decided that the next time I watch the show, I'm going to make it into a drinking game where you have a shot for every time Scott Disick looks sad.
But the really exciting find was a new show called Famously Single on E! News. You must have heard of it. They've taken 8 "celebrities" and treated them to therapy with a relationship expert in the hope that it will cure them of the obviously nightmarish disease that is Being Single. I'd not heard of a single one of these celebrities apart from my Jersey Shore fave - Pauly D. The last time I saw Pauly D on the small screen he was screaming "cabs are here" and fumigating the room with hairspray. Then he went on to have a dubious career as a DJ. And now he's back, and apparently in love with one of the other "celebs" on the show - Aubrey O'Day (no, I have no idea either).In the trailer I watched, the therapist asks them "if you're not going to try out the therapy, then why are you here?" Er.... is "to revive my flagging career by shagging someone on screen" too obvious an answer?
Anyway - in conclusion - I'm thrilled that we finally have SKY. It might make me stupider, but at least I'll be up on the really important news in 2016 (Rob Kardashian proposed to Blac Chyna and DIDN'T TELL HIS SISTERS OR HIS MOTHER - THEY HAD TO FIND OUT VIA SOCIAL MEDIA.)
So.... BREXIT. It sort of makes me want to be back in Britain (cause that's where it's all kicking off and it sounds crazy) and also kind of glad I'm not there (because it's all kicking off and it sounds crazy). I do have one piece of good news though - we can still enter Eurovision:
Prime Minister David Cameron, who on Friday announced that he will be stepping down in October, addressed the future of Eurovision during PMQs in April. Labour MP Helen Goodman asked him to “tell the house what the worst argument he’s heard from Brexiters is”, to which he replied: “I think probably the one that we’d get out of the Eurovision Song Contest. Not only would that be incredibly sad but given that Israel and Azerbaijan and anyone anywhere near Europe seems to be able to enter - and Australia - then I think we’re pretty safe from that one.”
So rest assured - the pound may be plummeting and xenophobia exploding across the country, but Sonia's legacy of Better the Devil You Know lives on. Phew.
