me, rather than you turning it on a seven o'clock and you leaving it on until

half-past eleven when the programmes finish.

Matthew: Do you think of television though as a great time-waster?

Lesley: Un ...I think it can be a time-waster and it depends on how particular people are

about what they want to see...Mm, it can just be a sort of total amusement for someone

and totally consuming without really considering what it is they're watching.

Matthew: Aha, but how do you prevent it coming into your life and taking over your evenings

and at the same time perhaps get . . . get out of the television some of the sort

of best things...best programmes that...that undoubtedly are on television?

Lesley: Well, I suppose one of the problems is ...will depend on what a person's life style

is, and that if he has other outside interests which are equally important to him

as television, he will then, you know, mm . . . be more careful about which programmes

he wants to watch because he has time which he wants to use for other things.

Matthew: Do you think though that... that in . . . in a sense television has killed people's

own er...sort of , creativity or their ability to entertain themselves because if

they're bored all they do is just turn on the television?

Lesley: Yes, I think that is a danger, and I think that. .in fact is what is happening to

a lot of people who use it as their ... their main...um field of amusement and ...

because they don't have other outside interests and even when people come round

they'll leave the television on and not be, you know, particularly interested in

talking to them, you know the television will be the main thing in the room.

Matthew: Peter, have you got a television?

Peter: I have, in fact I've got two televisions.

Matthew: Do you watch them a lot?

Peter: Er ... no I...I watch very seldom er ... In fact, I find that I watch television

most when I'm most busy, when I'm working hardest and I need some sort of passive

way of relaxing, something which requires nothing of me, then I watch television

a lot. When I've got more energy left...um ...in my own private time, in my free

time, then I find I do more different things. I do things like um reading, or going

out, or working on anything . . . my hobbies.

Matthew: Do you think though that people can live a perfectly happy life if they haven't

got a television?

Peter: Oh yes, I think people who don't have a television or people who entertainment.

Don't watch television can be expected to be more happy. You can assume I think

if they never watch television they are happier people than the people who watch

a lot of television, because I think that television goes with the kind of life

which leaves you with nothing to spare, nothing left, you have to be given potted,

passive entertainment.