TV Rots The Brain - Official

The average number of hours watched and the age at which a child begins watching television are central to the association with negative effects later on.

Those effects include alterations in activity, size and consistency of skin immune cells, an independent cause of obesity, changes in the endocrine and immune system, links with premature puberty in girls, subverting brain cell development underlying attention and impulse control, reducing cerebral blood flow and brain stimulation, sleeping disorders at all ages even from passive viewing, body-fat production, abnormal glucose metabolism and new Type 2 diabetes, a possible trigger for autism, lowered metabolic rate, raised blood cholesterol and risk for cardiovascular illness and death, substantial increases in child myopia.

Now you know why I like to read about it rather than watch it. Nancy Banks-Smith has been reviewing television for the Guardian since 1969 and her column in the Guardian Weekly is eagerly awaited by those of us who don't really miss British TV. The following are mere snippets:

Ken Stott looks like a sawn-off shotgun. His interrogative eyebrows and double-barrelled black glare are wrapped up in a Scottish accent. It makes for a puzzling package. His father was Scottish but his mother was Sicilian. You feel "Oh, of course", as if you had solved a particularly sticky, cryptic crossword clue.

Having been laid a bit low recently, I saw a lot of Inspector Morse. Chunks of him were transmitted every afternoon, like a great cut-and-come-again cake. It was like being fed plum duff and custard. I began to notice the custard. How beautifully, how selflessly, how lightly Kevin Whately played Det Sgt Lewis, emphasising John Thaw's star quality by circling him solicitously.

Richard remembered, with many a hesitation and deletion, the dreadful and dreaded loos at his prep school. "The bullying ..... the dark corners ..... pretty heathen places after the warmth of the home toilet. It made quite an impact when I was five, six, seven, eight years old." Poor little soul. It is perfectly clear what frightened the child, and why he has spent 20 years cleaning up the nation's loos.

And what, you may ask, is the relevance to life in Jakarta? Simple really; the government has found another way to rot our brains ...... and livers and lungs and all organic matter come to think of it.

Today's lead story in the Jakarta Post beggars belief. The first paragraph neatly sums up the myopic short-termism which has long plagued the country.

Indonesia will press ahead with its plan to begin the construction of its first nuclear plant in 2010, even though no decisions have been made on many important aspects, including technological specifications and safety matters.

The country's nuclear programme is expected to provide just 3% of the energy needs. If there is enough money available to build this monstrosity, to maintain it for its comparatively short life, i.e. 30 years, and to store the spent highly radioactive fuel for as many half-lives as it takes to render it safe - 5,000 years minimum!! - then surely there is the finance available to educate the population to save 3% of the energy currently used, to develop renewable energy sources such as geo-thermal and solar power, and to generally reverse the trend towards the booming consumptive and hedonistic lifestyles which give rise to the unthinking demand for so much energy.
 

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