Square eyes and odd obsessions.

One of the things I've never really agreed with in this country is the TV license. If you use your TV to watch regular programming, you have to pay a yearly fee to use your TV. Even for just the BBC. For years I lived with a TV hooked up to a DVD player, and had to call them up every time they stuck a note through the door reminding me to pay the fee to assure the drone paid to take my call that no, I did NOT have an aerial and did NOT watch TV, only watched DVDs from my (extensive) collection. They never fully believed me, and told me more than once that they'd be coming by to check out my setup, although the threatened visit never materialised.

Himself and I ticked along without regularly scheduled programming for a couple of years after we got together, and had actually been married over a year when we moved into this flat and he decided having the option to watch TV was worth paying the fee. I'll admit, the novelty of it was a very strange feeling for an American.

It's bad, though. We watch TV instead of going out. We live in London, there's no excuse not to go out at least once a week. Theatre, music, history, fabulous restaurants, pubs, clubs, you name it. How often do we go out? I won't answer that question due to the inordinate amount of embarrassment it would cause me.

The funniest thing about getting TV was this. Himself has some... interesting... tastes in television programming. Flavour of Love: Charm School. Wife Swap. How Clean is Your House. And now, Britain's Got Talent.

That's right. We'll be home all week, watching the semifinals. Last night saw us raging over Simon Cowell's decision to let the crappy ten year old boy band through instead of the middle aged Frank Sinatra singing bouncer. Screeching ball of fury, thy name is Gabs. I don't think I've ever been that angry, and about half way through my shrieking fit I had a slight out of body experience where I saw myself, a thirty year old woman, screaming at the television over a talent show. Not a pretty sight.

So tonight, we're torn between four of the eight acts as to who we fancy through to the next round. Hopefully one of them won't be the sixty year old Madonna impersonator named Philip. At the moment, he's inside a giant disco ball wearing a spangly unitard and rather a lot of pancake makeup. Where he gets his shoes is beyond me. He's frightening the cats, so I'll stop blogging and comfort them with treats and violent loving. They can't get enough of it.