401: TV bad, Inside Nature's Giants good

Inside Nature's Giants is the best thing on telly: big animals, evolution, it's great. Each episode features an autopsy of one of nature's giants, enabling us to see the creature's unique features, how it is evolved to survive in its environment. The last episode was about sea turtles. A giant leatherback was tragically killed when a boat's propeller tore off a front limb and cut deep into its side, rupturing the oesophagus and a lung; this poor giant formed the subject of the episodes autopsy.

The show was sponsored by Honda, who chose to advertise their product with vignettes of a propeller in the water, a speed boat cutting through the surf in the dark. Yes, Honda decided the best way to advertise their wares (cars or boats?) to the nature lovers that make up Inside Nature's Giants' audience, is with stylised footage of the weapon which ended the life of that beautiful ancient leatherback. Next week, Honda sponsors a documentary about children killed on the road with footage of drag racing past a primary school.

I don't ever remember them investigating the insides of a bear yet, but that sounds fascinating. They are running out of giants to look at: whales, sharks, squid, camel, elephant, giraffe, sea turtles; what else? I've just looked on Channel 4's website and there are episodes I have missed. Forget going to work today; I have to sit here for the next few hours and watch The Polar Bear, The Sperm Whale, and The Dinosaur Bird (Cassowary).

Shows how unwatched TV has become: it's my favourite show on telly currently by a long stretch, and yet I'm incapable of remembering to watch it on a weekly basis. TV is deader than the dinosaur bird (which are pretty rare, but not extinct), it just doesn't know it yet. Right now I wish TV was dead, because it's over there on the other side of the room shouting nonsense at me, distracting me, wiping my memory of whatever the previous sentence was about, so making it next to impossible to keep forging forward, one word after the other.

As much as I would like to, for some reason it's not a good idea to sit inside watching telly with the curtains closed instead of working. Muting the TV and turning my back to it might enable me to write some more. It is unbelievable how destructive TV is to the mind. TV is bad for you; kills conversation, distracts from all the important and difficult things in life. How do people in TV ever get anything done; their job is watching, knowing about and making television, the very obstacle which prevents people from getting anything done. Maybe it's just me. Anyway: Inside Nature's Giants, woohoo – my favourite excuse.