Are You Receiving Me?

I'm annoyed with my radio. I should just point out that I do love my radio, but I'm experiencing a falling out with it lately. Why is it that you spend quite a time jiggling your set around to find just the right angle to receive the best quality signal, step back ready to get comfy on the settee, and it goes all crackly? I tried several different positions this evening (remember, I'm talking about my radio) and it happened each time. Aha! I thought to myself, if I turn it to a jaunty angle where it is crackly, when I step back it will be tuned in nicely. Very annoyingly it was crackly again. It happened in bed last night too. Got all comfy, pillows and duvet plumped up voluptuously (or was that me?), adjusted my radio to perfection, snuggled down, and off it went again, white noise to match my white duvet set. I used the aerial even though it shouldn't make a difference on medium wave (not sure why this is, but I remember a clever person telling me once). When I was holding the aerial, perfect sound came out, then I let go - well, I don't need to tell you what happened. Perhaps I am full of spooky static. Maybe it depends on whether the radio likes what I'm listening to. Farming Today seems OK, and thankfully, so is the Shipping Forecast (including inland waterways). It must be those plays the Beeb puts on, full of actors used to speaking with received pronunciation trying to sound colloquial - I'm in sympathy with my radio over this.

While I'm on the subject of aerials, my TV goes funny too. The box thing offers a huge selection of channels, but when I select something that looks really fascinating I get a message like 'data channel only' or 'audio channel'. When I find a station that does work, it quite often goes pixilated and Noel Edmonds (yes, I have to confess to the occasional fix of 'Deal or No Deal') starts talking like a robot. Deal or No Deal is bad enough at the best of times, but when you don't even find out what they've won, it seriously loses what little appeal it might have had. I think this has something to do with the aerial being stuffed down the neighbour's chimney. When it's windy it blows round and I get a different set of channels to those I've become addicted to. I've given up watching series, a gale between episodes can be very frustrating.

I've just come up with an invention - the radio stick. I can poke the radio into a good position without my static doing its stuff.

All I need to do now is have a chat with that pixie in the telly.