The first time I was introduced to television was in France in 1960 after arriving from South Africa where, by order of the government, no television broadcast was allowed. South Africans had to wait until 1976 before they could participate in the new religion. In France I looked at it, as it helped me to learn french and often I enjoyed the local programs. The french made a lot of movies that were most of the time not exported and quite a few were well-acted and filmed. Publicity was non- existent in the first blissful years and I particularly liked watching Le Grand Charles, the general de Gaulle, the only decent politician France has had since Charles V. President de Gaulle was a great orator, as good if not better than Winston Churchill and I was a keen listener when he used the tele media to tell his frenchies how to get the Eternal French Honour back into shape. It was always a fine performance and to my mind there hasn’t been a politician since, french or other to equal him.

As all good things this kind of television didn’t last, like a horrible smelly dog, publicity bored its slimy nose into the picture. In the beginning it remained fairly discreet, for a number of years you could still look at a movie without it being interrupted every five minutes by some idiotic pub announcement but of course that didn’t last. I still remember the protests that went up in France against films being interrupted for publicity purposes but I knew already that the pub people would win despite the ‘literary’ and ‘art’ loving french population. In private, Charles de Gaulle called his countrymen ‘les veaux’, the calves, who am I to say he was right or wrong?

          For me it was the end of my tele watching as I could not stand the interruptions and the lunatic appeals imploring or ordering me to go and buy something I didn’t need with money I didn’t have. This was the beginning of the commercial onslaught on the people of the so-called wealthy countries of the world and it has not stopped for the last forty years. The ‘Age of Waste’ had started in earnest and the noble invention of television by fine scientific minds was the driver of this expanding global madness. In North America, that hard working nation had a publicity head start on the Europeans and those relatively unsophisticated people, driven by the relentless 24/7 tele-publicity  began to buy colossal amounts of unneeded things with money they didn’t have.

          350 Million americans depleted the dollar supply covered by the american Fort Knox gold by their foolish spendthrift. “Never mind,” shouted then president Nixon, “ef the gold, we’ll print as many dollars as we want!”

          That was the year 1971 when the almighty dollar left the gold standard and the credit wagon lost its brakes with the printing press aboard. That was the year when television began taking over the minds of the people that live on this world. Shysters and photogenic men and women present themselves far better on the screen than  plodding and earnest people, ergo, shysters became the new political leaders in Europe and America. Dentists flourished, all these people needed a hell of a lot of white teeth for their phoney smiles as they distributed their promises of welfare for the masses.

Television, like a vast octopus grabbed every human activity in one of its tentacles and injected a growth factor in order to maximise financial returns.

 ‘Sport’ was one of its finest discoveries. Chappies kicking  a bloody football around became glorified national heroes and entire nations lost their rational bearings to concentrate on these ball kicking and bull shitting exercises. I believe that peasants, still alive in Vietnam after the americans had done their utmost to kill them, regarded the soccer world cup with tiny screens and worn out batteries. You’d think that these people had more pressing priorities but no, telesport had become global and’ef the rice planting’.

Television wanted people to spend money in order for publicity to increase their budgets. The spending frenzy became much facilitated with the banks’ invention of bankcards for the safety of their customers not being mugged anymore for cash. Yeah, yeah, now they get shot at ATM’s.

Micheline’s and my children were never much influenced by the telepub and so I don’t know how , globally, children became indoctrinated by this lying dictator but from what I’ve read I can’t infer anything good.

I’m becoming totally convinced that the influence that television has had on the behaviour of the world’s population is still not understood today. The dramatic pictures of the destruction of New York’s twin towers made it a piece of cake for an american president to declare war on a country thousands of miles away and that had bugger all to do with that attack. Black, well-endowed winning tennis players are à la mode, let’s have a black president also.

As financial profit and power is the aim of this teleadvertising tyrannosaurus we cannot expect sage and well-meaning influences from it. For years consumers were told that investing in houses was the best thing they could do, even with borrowed money. Entire governments believed in credit and when their politicians had grabbed most of their people’s money, they borrowed more. And it all went to waste.

There is not a human activity that has not been contaminated by television. Musical performers, up to their eyeballs in hard drugs yell their insane tunes and are paid millions. Wildlife documentaries destroy the freedom of the investigated animals when the ‘researchers’ fix radio emitters onto dolphins, panthers and others, treating them like the rape accused french banker DSK in New York but for less reason.

That wonderful invention that television might have been, has become the world’s addiction and hides its baneful curse. Dope is the name of the game. Worldwide.