Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Far off signals

I've found myself a little busy this past week or so, and at the same time strangely reluctant to do much, hence my not posting anything, somewhat ironically considerring my previous post. Anyway.
Last tuesday, I returned home, panting and sweating from another evening spent dodging vehicles as I cycled from work, and as ever parked the bike in the garden. Coming back out of the garden entrance, I looked up, and noticed that the Satellite Dish Fairy had been. Alongside our humble Sky minidish, through which the house receives the standard terrestrial channels and about 15,000 other channels of what is mostly mindglop, there was a bloody HUGE new satellite dish. It probably has the ability to pick up signals from TV stations beaming from Arcturus. It only took me a few seconds to surmise what had happened: Nurel had been hankering after Turkish TV ever since coming across a programme, via the internet, called 'Asi' several weeks ago. She spent the best party of two weeks, almost NON-STOP, watching it in 8-minute bursts courtesy of YouTube. To that end, she'd been scouring eBay and Gumtree for cheap satellite dishes, and had even mentioned ones up in North London, over in Yorkshire, even in Wales.
It turned out that she'd actually bought one via eBay for £50, driven up to London (with Sean in tow), collected it, driven back, phoned a local friendly Turkish Satellite Installation Guy to install the bloody thing, and left me to come home gaping in surprise at the whole thing. Which she did: I have to admit I admire the speed and efficiency with which the whole deed was accomplished. So now we have about 15,000 additional channels, this time in Turkish.
Now, this is actually no bad thing, for several reasons. Firstly, it means the boys are getting some badly-needed additional Turkish input - not just the language, but also exposure to Turkish culture, or perhaps the Turkish media's interpretation of what Turkish culture is. What I mean by this is that, for example, watch Eastenders and say that that is an entirely accurate description of what British culture is. However, it can only be useful. Second, Nur's clearly suddenly much more comfortable and happier. Third, while watching snatches of it I can indulge in mentally translating things and also indulge in my love of wordplay and mockery. Next, by having it on in the evenings it makes me much more inclined to go and do something more productive - I become far more aware of how passive I feel in front of a TV when I'm watching something in a foreign language. And lastly, our house suddenly feels like a little corner of Turkey, and that is no bad thing at all.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chok Guzel Nurel!!!!

Anonymous said...

Sagol Erin!!!
Tamamiyle ayni fikirdeyim seninle...
Cok guzel ozellikle 9 sene sonra Turk Televizyonunu tekrar kendi evimde seyretmek cok guzel!!!
Sagol iyi dileklerin icin...
Bu vesile ile "hazirlik ve planlama" konusunda cok basarili oldugumu esime de gosterme sansimi iyi kullandim sanirim:-)))
Buradaki arkadaslar sagolsun ;gercekten dayanisma 10 uzerinden 10!!!