After four full days of lower back pain, and yesterday thinking that today it might be over, I find myself into a fifth day of pain although, like yesterday morning, it appears less severe. I shall not be venturing out today, just pottering around the house. I am in the middle of two very different pursuits started yesterday: learning how to use ‘normal’ TV and reading a novel – a ‘Celtic mystery’ – set in 7th. century Rome.

I ‘cut the chord’ in 2010 when I purchased an Apple TV and have not had ‘normal’ television since. I find it incredibly easy to use, very reliable and with very high picture and sound quality. Obviously I upgraded to the 4K HDR device as soon as it was released in 2017. For all this time I have used nothing but the Apple TV – I have no TV aerial, no satellite dish and no cable box. The TV channels with their fixed schedules have long been a thing of the past for me. However, I miss reading Radio Times every week, which became superfluous as I had no need of schedules. Having said that, it was a great magazine, with well-written articles and informative film reviews.

As of late last night I have ‘Freely’, the latest iteration of Freeview and Freesat, all ventures of the BBC, ITV and others. My first impressions are that it is rubbish. It really is very poor indeed and nowhere near as easy to use as Apple TV. I studied the literature and was reassured that all the Freeview channels would be present, with an easy-to-use interface and channel guide. It is not. Furthermore, as I cycled through the main ‘terrestrial’ channels last night – BBC1 was okay, BBC2 was okay – ITV was not available! I had to press the yellow button to sign up for ITVX!! Why!!!

By midnight I gave up. It took me half an hour this morning to follow the instructions on-screen. I scanned the QR code with my iPad, signed up – a lengthy process – and nothing happened. I was not prompted to type the 6-digit number on the screen. My second attempt was with my iPhone and finally I managed to do it. This sort of thing is unacceptable in this day and age. I know my tech and my gadgets but many out there do not – how would they get on?

Anyway, all of this television stuff seems a bit prosaic in the great scheme of things. I look forward to the day when the Freely app is available on Apple TV and all will then be well with the universe. The novel, which I did not have high hopes for, is an altogether different bucket of whelks. An actual well-worn second or third-hand paperback given to me by a friend in a pub, mainly because we had previously been discussing the Synod of Whitby and the subsequent decline of the Celtic church and remorseless rise of the Roman church. I shan’t dwell on it here but to my surprise I am enjoying the novel, which is rich in the known history of the Irish, Britons and Saxons and the tensions between Roman and Celtic culture. It reminds me of many questions I have never found answers to, although I am sure the knowledge exists out there somewhere. Having run out of room here I shall compose a further post on the issues raised by the novel and by this very interesting period in European history.