In fact, scratch that

In my last blog posting, I defended the BBC and the Licence Fee. I said that paying for programmes I never watch was a necessary sacrifice in order to protect the Beeb as a whole.

Having been subjected to over an hour of BBC One's daytime schedule – I had no choice in the matter, sat in the waiting room at the dentists, less than 5 feet away from a massive flat screen TV – I am seriously reconsidering.

I had to watch a programme called Open House, which was billed as a programme about how sellers are dealing with the slow-down in the housing market. This was a lie, because we actually followed one extremely well-to-do old dear who was having a little bit of trouble shifting her £625,000 marina-side, 5-bedroom house. Sorry to spoil it for you, but it was because the house was crammed full of old lady furniture and knick-knacks.

This was followed by a programme called Car Booty, where someone rummages through their house, collecting together enough pieces of old tat to sell at a boot sale to raise X-hundred pounds. In this case, a woman trying to raise £600 to send her mum and dad on a "really nice day out". The search turned up a bronze sculpture worth £800, and a collection of Star Wars figures worth £700. But rather than just selling these and have done with it, we had to watch as they peddled two trestle-tables' worth of thimbles, glasses and trinket boxes to raise £100 at a boot sale.

I detest this sort of television: not because it's bad, or very cheaply-produced (Open House even had a "break" half-way through, presumably in expectation of selling the show to UKTV at some stage), or even because it's not really my sort of thing. I detest it because it's pointless. Those people didn't represent the masses, they didn't need any help, and they certainly didn't warrant putting on national television (even at 11 o'clock in the morning).

I want a little bit of my TV Licence back.