Information Overload

It might sound like a strange criticism, but if there's one thing that annoys me about me (well, there are many things but we'll go with this one for now) it's the fact that I am just interested in too many things.

I blame my relatively late start in journalism on wanting to try out all these different career options. Although in a way I regret not going to university, I've no idea how I would have picked one subject to study. These days I could probably choose - history, since you ask - but at 18, the choices were just too mind-boggling to cope with.

I've had mad ideas about being a scientist, a horticulturalist, a zoo keeper, an administrator, and so on. And that was just as an adult. While at school, my serious career ambitions included vet, author, film director and teacher. At 15 I was dead set on being an archaeologist - by the time I actually left school just months later, I was heading for a career in TV production. I seriously flirted with applying for the police force before landing a job in animal care. Basically, I'm an annoying, flighty twat.

Anyway, all this is a very long-winded way of saying that I find an awful lot of diverse things fascinating. And normally I struggle to indulge them. Because I have been denied the chance to study my areas of interest in any formal way (though I have an Open University history course on the shelf to study at my leisure, just as soon as I finish writing that book - see, more twattery in action) I often find it difficult to even remember all the things I wanted to find out more about, let alone actually do it.

But for the last couple of weeks, I have had an opportunity. Being alone in the house has presented me with a rather unexpected source of joy and excitement. The television.

Usually, I have a mixed relationship with the television. Not only does it literally belong to my husband (I thought the one we had already was perfectly fine, but he wanted to splash out loads of money on a new one, creating an eternal rift between me and the hardware, like a fancy new dog and it's owner's partner who have never successfully bonded due to residual jealousy on both sides) but 99 per cent of the time, it is also under his minute control. The remote buttons reside in his hand and his hand alone, even when he is asleep.

Like a spoilt child presenting endless shit paintings to its doting dad, the TV throws out hour after hour, day after day of absolute crap and he swallows it whole. Dreadful American sitcoms, tedious police camera compilations, Identikit glossy US crime dramas, even high volume children's television that just makes me want to gnaw my own face off. And I increasingly walk away.

Maybe once or twice a week, I wrestle control of the remote and insist on watching an hour or two of telly, a show that I have specifically ear-marked as being of interest. But on the rare occasions when even his tolerance for utter televisual bilge has been exhausted and I am handed the remote, there is usually absolutely nothing on and I give up anyway. But on those occasions, when I am sharing sofa space with the male of the household, there is one category on the TV guide which very rarely gets a look-in unless things are desperate or I can argue a case for one particular programme - the documentaries.

For my other half has a natural disinclination towards the factual. Unless it involves real footage of a drunk clubber getting his head torn off by a police dog or gruesome images of bowel surgery, documentaries generally get the thumbs down.

But over the last fortnight, I have made a discovery. If you just turn the telly on and stick it on the History Channel all night, or National Geographic, you can have a jolly fine time. You learn stuff. You learn stuff about things you've heard of and were previously interested in. You learn stuff about things you've never heard of in your life. You learn stuff about things you'd heard of and would have considered eye-shreddingly boring, only to discover they're really rather compelling.

Just this last week, I have finally found out what became of Henry VIII's six wives. (If you've not heard, I won't spoil the surprise, but suffice to say he wasn't the catch you might imagine.) I've learned about the methods and attitude of Britain's former head executioner, Albert Pierrepoint and how long it took him from hand shake to neck break.

I've found out the theories behind the Bermuda Triangle conundrum. One of which is utter bollocks, but you'd be disappointed if a documentary about a famous mystery didn't include at least one delusional crack pot. I've learned the possible location of Hitler's bunker and heard about the moral dilemmas of his bodyguards.

I've learned about the origins and downfall of the legendary Knights Templar; I've chuntered at some smug fat git who's bagged himself 24 wives and 121 kids, all in the name of religion; I've heard about the lost pyramids of China and all the poor bastards who had to build them.

Still on the planner of recorded shows, I have two documentaries that I'm too scared to watch on my own - one about the Witch Finder's Bible and one about weird occult happenings in Mexico and Greece. Right now, I'm watching something impenetrable about Tudor tennis.

Basically what I'm saying is, when given free rein to really watch what appeals to me, I've found the telly to be far more than the steaming pile of plastic turning out stinky turds than I used to think it was.

But I fear it will not last. In a few days time, it will be back to Neighbours and Police Camera Action and CSI: Miami. Sigh. But at least me and the telly will always know that we finally bonded in secret. When the cat was away, the ultra square mice well and truly played - in educational style.