In the beginning I watched things on a black and white television. I liked that black and white television until they invented the colour one.

But this one did not have a remote control so was soon obsolete too.

For a while things were okay until they decided we all needed bigger TVs.

I remember us getting a 28-inch TV back in the nineties and at the time we felt it was the best thing that ever happened.

Now, I could watch Sid James laugh in surround sound.

As years went by nothing changed until they decided I didn’t have all the channels, so we went out and bought a dish to stick on our walls.

Now, we could sit and watch endless amount of pointless programmes on channels named after people.

Just when I had settled myself they said we needed flat screen TVs.

I went out and bought one and felt content that I had the latest technology.

Then, they did what they are good at. They told me I needed HD (High Definition) and the ‘type of flat screen had changed’. The plasma TV wasn’t an LCD TV.

A friend of mine said it was wonderful and he had become a better person and human being by getting a ‘HD ready TV’.

But has he really? Am I simply being conned into upgrading?

It is not until you have to buy things for yourself and pay the bills that you realise that this is all just utter nonsense.

We don’t need LCD TVs or HD or a new gaming system.

It is like wanting to buy washing powder that makes your clothes ‘whiter than white’ or a cleaner that ‘kills the germs you can’t see’ whilst leaving the stains you can see all over the floor.

And for those too lazy to clean anything just spray this scented stuff on it – so it ‘smells like it is clean’.

The point is I don’t need HD but I am being made to feel inferior because I don’t have it.

My smug friend’s life hasn’t changed that much – but in a small way he thinks it has because he goes home to his HD and I don’t.

The latest trick they are trying to pull on me is the 3D TV.

I wish for one moment I could have a brown panelled TV with no remote control, three channels and a tendency to break down once in a while.

Bliss.