Attempts to liven up or beautify this giant waiting room are very much of the half-hearted variety. A limp potted plant here. Some obscure early-90s video games there.

Adding to (rather than subtracting from) the general air of faded 60s/70s gloom is the area's centre piece – as insipid a piece of corporate/public art as one could wish not to see:

While the tiled base and gold trimmings may leave the aesthetically-sensitive traveller reeling (and reaching for a lavender-soaked handkerchief), the ludicrous red-roping-off is what really delivers the knock-out punch.

But there's more.

Just as the floored and distraught aesthete recovers his/her senses, and begins to haul him/herself back onto trembling hands and knees, a small gold plate at the piece's base comes slowly into focus:

Though instinct may advise you to rub your disbelieving eyes (before casting aside bottles of intoxicating liquor) allow me to confirm that the above does indeed read "The Spirit of Duty Free".

Given that nobody (apart from, or perhaps including, the artist herself) has ever, even idly, pondered what form the spirit of duty free might actually take, it's hard to judge whether or not the piece accurately captures airport shopping's elusive qualities. All I can offer, by way of critique, is to confirm that it made me laugh, it made me feel like crying, and (like a giant, duty-free Toblerone) it nearly made me sick.

On the subject of laughter, I should point out that "The Spirit of Duty Free" actually gives a (presumably unintentional) nod to the sublime Phil Silvers Show. In "Bilko the Art Lover" we meet Carylye Thompson III ¹ – struggling artist and heir to the Thompson Shipping fortune, who finds himself feuding with his industrialist father. Da wants him to move into the family business. Carlyle dreams of sticking it to the (old) man by swinging with the bohemian set. Cue a "you'll not get a penny from me m'boy"-type falling out which Bilko must cunningly try and resolve (for his own selfish reasons of course).

After finagling his way into a company meeting (by impersonating a branch manager) Bilko manages to persuade the elder Thompson to purchase an unseen (but hyped up) piece of sculpture for the new corporate HQ. Cut to the unveiling of what Thompson Sr. imagines to be a monumental and iconic work. The curtain falls to reveal…a small, unlovely and unloved abstract figure that the father knows only too well – his son's "Woman with Grapes", a piece that convinced him of the young lad's mediocrity as an artist.

Realising that the joke's on him, and mindful of the delighted gasps of one and all, the father welcomes the boy back with open arms, promising to be an enthusiastic supporter and patron of young Caryle's art. And how did Bilko manage to sell the hard-nosed father on the idea of a corporate sculpture? He simply renamed it, giving it a title designed to stir feelings in cold industrialist hearts – "The Spirit of Transportation".

Did a similar concatenation of events lead to the purchase and installation of "The Spirit of Duty Free"? We can but wonder. Somehow I doubt the circumstances were as funny.

P.S: As a "last minute" Christmas gift idea I very heartily recommend Sgt. Bilko: The Phil Silvers Show – 50th Anniversary Edition Box Set which I saw on sale in HMV at the giving-it-away price of €19.95 (or thereabouts). 3 discs of beautifully crafted, impeccably performed comedy that no Irish home should be without. Especially considering the shit currently on TV.

1. A very young Alan Alda. [back]

The lovely Fergal Crehan of Tuppenceworth has just outed himself as a (relatively) proud non-watcher of television. His stirring words have roused me from my blogging slumber and reminded me that there are more things in heaven and on earth worth writing about than quirky extraterrestrial visitors.

It has been almost two years since I outed myself (and my lovely wife) in similar fashion:

Though I have a television (the object) I never watch TV (the medium). In other words, though the box sits (as is customary) in the corner of our sitting room, it is not hooked up to anything other than a DVD player, a VCR, and a smattering of games consoles.

Not much has changed since then. We replaced our hefty black square box with a hefty grey widescreen rectangular affair (so I might satisfy my nerdy obsessions about aspect ratios) but the object is still only used for the playing of DVDs or video games. This does not mean, of course, that I have "maximised my potentiality" and become (by virtue of Swedish exercises and 30 books a day) a mature, well-rounded individual. I'm still prone to feelings of futility, hopelessness, despair, rage and all the rest of it. Such feelings are (for good or ill) part of the ould "human condition" and I'm sure they'll never fully disappear…but at least I won't be feeling then while watching QVC at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Before I go further a distinction needs to be made between a) TV as a medium for (let's say) the telling of serialised stories, and, b) TV as "always on" wallpaper. As a vehicle for ongoing narratives that one can immerse oneself in it is quite brilliant. A glance at my DVD collection would, after all, suggest a "TV, Yay!" attitude that might seem at odds with a cable/rabbit ears-free lifestyle: Buffy, The X-Files, The Phil Silvers Show, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Spaced, I'm Alan Partridge, The Outer Limits (etc., etc.) . All TV shows. All great. All generously represented on our sitting room shelves.

Choosing to sit (with optional glass of red wine in hand) and watch an episode or six of any of the above is something that never gives me anything but pleasure. One feels a sense of choice, of fan participation, of (if it's not over-egging it a tad) communion. In contrast, whenever I come across (in public or private houses) indiscriminate, "wallpaper" TV I tend to be reminded of the wearying (and maddening) feelings of worthlessness and self-loathing that endless television can engender.

In the domestic setting the act of "watching" TV has become synonymous with channel-surfing…a slow-burning, soul-destroying activity that reminds one of the Jerry Seinfeld gag about TV being (and I paraphrase) less about what's on and more about what else is on.

The depressing, contemporary proliferation of televisions in pubs is also a pox, not only because it threatens to overwhelm one of the pub's great joys – random, boozy, free-wheeling conversation – but also because its glittering images of bourgeois self-satisfaction can act as taunting, "wish you were here"…er…carrots (if you see what I mean). It's rude. It's intrusive. It's "Big Brother" (in both its classic Orwellian, and contemporary senses) slyly suggesting: This (the life of drink, chat, and friendship) is not "Life"…it is, in fact, but a pale shadow of the shiny (Vodafone ad) lifestyle of affluent (want it all) juvenility.

I'm aware this post is in danger of becoming derailed and turning into a flaming, ranting wreck – so perhaps it's time to summarise, or finally get to a point.

Not watching TV has not made me any more happy. It has, however, made me slightly less miserable.