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September 9, 2023 6:31 PM Subscribe
I Am Obsessed With The Tiny TVs Of ‘Escape To The Country’ [Libby Watson, Defector]
“The TVs might be very small, or very old. You often see actual cathode-ray tube TVs (most of the episodes I see on YouTube are from the mid-2010s, long past Acceptable CRT Time). Frequently they are placed such that the sofa doesn’t directly face the screen, and sometimes a chair or a set of stairs is firmly in the way of the TV. There are tiny kitchen tellies, tiny bedroom tellies mounted to the wall or perched on a dresser, perpendicular to the bed. I have yet to see a tiny bathroom telly, but I know it’s out there.”
How can somebody write that much about Escape to the Country without mentioning how many people are going to have “a business” that’s almost never an actual idea for a business? “A business” is my weirdly placed obsolete TV, I guess.
posted by fedward at 7:31 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by fedward at 7:31 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
You need to see a couple in their 60s looking at cottages in villages with names like Mavis Enderby and Barton Fossett.
Delightful tangent:
The comedian Adam Hills has a live BSL interpreter on stage during his acts, and sometimes he teases her by saying outrageous things just to see how she'll sign them. During one of his specials, he also starts doing a bit about British place names and how they sound - and then turns that into a "let's fuck with the BSL interpreter" moment, making her sign made-up place names like "Cockfosters", "Heron's Egret" and "Spinster's Minge".
....She has a lot of fun with the name "Cockfosters", though, when he slows down and pronounces the "cock" and the "fosters" separately.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:30 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
Delightful tangent:
The comedian Adam Hills has a live BSL interpreter on stage during his acts, and sometimes he teases her by saying outrageous things just to see how she'll sign them. During one of his specials, he also starts doing a bit about British place names and how they sound - and then turns that into a "let's fuck with the BSL interpreter" moment, making her sign made-up place names like "Cockfosters", "Heron's Egret" and "Spinster's Minge".
....She has a lot of fun with the name "Cockfosters", though, when he slows down and pronounces the "cock" and the "fosters" separately.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:30 PM on September 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
making her sign made-up place names like "Cockfosters",
? Cockfosters is a suburb of London. There's a tube stop and everything.
posted by praemunire at 9:05 PM on September 9, 2023 [29 favorites]
? Cockfosters is a suburb of London. There's a tube stop and everything.
posted by praemunire at 9:05 PM on September 9, 2023 [29 favorites]
I've ranted about how much this show drives me crazy (and not in a good way) before, so I'll skip repeating it here. I don't pay any attention to the tiny TVs. What always catches my eye is the sad excuses for wood stoves that are always referred to by much more grandiose terms like fireplace (or sometimes woodburner). No, they aren't fireplaces anymore. They are former fireplaces that have been decommissioned and are now serving as the location for a wood stove because the chimney is there and can house the flue.
posted by sardonyx at 10:00 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sardonyx at 10:00 PM on September 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
No no, these are regular size tvs. We don’t need a 78 inch television to watch countryfile.
Also, when the uk switched over to digital radio stations were offered as part of the freeview service, so a lot of these televisions are working as radios - a much more useful service in the countryside, as services like schools and roads will have their closures announced on local radio stations.
posted by The River Ivel at 11:15 PM on September 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
Also, when the uk switched over to digital radio stations were offered as part of the freeview service, so a lot of these televisions are working as radios - a much more useful service in the countryside, as services like schools and roads will have their closures announced on local radio stations.
posted by The River Ivel at 11:15 PM on September 9, 2023 [16 favorites]
I came here to make the same point about television sets functioning as radios. Also, it’s pretty clear that furniture has been moved around to look better on screen.
posted by Kattullus at 11:49 PM on September 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Kattullus at 11:49 PM on September 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
I had hoped there was a very good reason like the one you’v e mentioned, The River Ivel and Katullus. That feels right and is definitely something that’s just inscrutable to an American.
posted by Miko at 12:01 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Miko at 12:01 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I have yet to see a tiny bathroom telly, but I know it’s out there.
Unlikely, British bathrooms do not have standard power sockets in them, our electrical safety rules forbid it. You'd need to run an extension cord in from outside the room to power a normal telly for watching in the bath. It's also why our light switches are either outside the bathroom door or string pull ones. Our mains power is 240V, so what might appear to be extra caution is not totally unreasonable.
posted by tomsk at 1:42 AM on September 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Unlikely, British bathrooms do not have standard power sockets in them, our electrical safety rules forbid it. You'd need to run an extension cord in from outside the room to power a normal telly for watching in the bath. It's also why our light switches are either outside the bathroom door or string pull ones. Our mains power is 240V, so what might appear to be extra caution is not totally unreasonable.
posted by tomsk at 1:42 AM on September 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Even when being used as a TV, a fair number of people just have it on for background noise; they're not actually watching it intently, it's just having something to keep you company while doing a boring task.
We inherited small wall-mount TVs in the master bedroom and kitchen when we moved because they couldn't be bothered to take them, and they're not in exactly ideal spots. The one in the kitchen might be 17", but when I was growing up that was a normal size TV! It works fine. My pre-teen kids are fine using it with a firestick when they disagree about what to watch in the living room, even if the colours are dreadful. Big TVs (50"+) just aren't as common here, probably because of our rabbit-hutch sized houses...
Also, here in deep dark Dorset, we have a few good place names nearby; just for starters, there's Shitterton, Scratchy Bottom, Shaggs, Sandy Balls, Knacker's Hole, and of course, the river Piddle and associated town names. Shitterton had to get a 1.5 ton stone entrance sign because people kept nicking the normal road sign!
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 1:47 AM on September 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
We inherited small wall-mount TVs in the master bedroom and kitchen when we moved because they couldn't be bothered to take them, and they're not in exactly ideal spots. The one in the kitchen might be 17", but when I was growing up that was a normal size TV! It works fine. My pre-teen kids are fine using it with a firestick when they disagree about what to watch in the living room, even if the colours are dreadful. Big TVs (50"+) just aren't as common here, probably because of our rabbit-hutch sized houses...
Also, here in deep dark Dorset, we have a few good place names nearby; just for starters, there's Shitterton, Scratchy Bottom, Shaggs, Sandy Balls, Knacker's Hole, and of course, the river Piddle and associated town names. Shitterton had to get a 1.5 ton stone entrance sign because people kept nicking the normal road sign!
posted by Absolutely No You-Know-What at 1:47 AM on September 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
Miko: I had hoped there was a very good reason like the one you’v e mentioned, The River Ivel and Katullus. That feels right and is definitely something that’s just inscrutable to an American.
Funnily enough, this is something I got to know from working in an agency for the blind in the US, though after that I started to notice it in other contexts as well. Older people who’d lose their sight wouldn’t own radios, but they’d have TVs that they’d start using essentially as radios, turn on local stations so they could hear the news. They’d often be set up in kinda strange places, from a sighted person’s perspective. One of the things we did was to buy radios with preset stations, that were easier to use than television remotes, for people who just wanted to follow the news, but didn’t want to get audio versions of newspapers.
posted by Kattullus at 1:51 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Funnily enough, this is something I got to know from working in an agency for the blind in the US, though after that I started to notice it in other contexts as well. Older people who’d lose their sight wouldn’t own radios, but they’d have TVs that they’d start using essentially as radios, turn on local stations so they could hear the news. They’d often be set up in kinda strange places, from a sighted person’s perspective. One of the things we did was to buy radios with preset stations, that were easier to use than television remotes, for people who just wanted to follow the news, but didn’t want to get audio versions of newspapers.
posted by Kattullus at 1:51 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
? Cockfosters is a suburb of London. There's a tube stop and everything.
And a very old related joke, which I first heard lo on some 35 years ago:
On a crowded tube ride you hear:
"Is this Cockfosters?"
"No, madam, it's mine!"
posted by chavenet at 3:51 AM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
And a very old related joke, which I first heard lo on some 35 years ago:
On a crowded tube ride you hear:
"Is this Cockfosters?"
"No, madam, it's mine!"
posted by chavenet at 3:51 AM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am fairly certain that "Tittington" and "Spinster's Minge" are not real place names, and I'm from the US and heard "Cockfosters" amid those names and so I just assumed. My apologies to the good people of Cockfosters.
And to the people of Tittington, just in case
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:15 AM on September 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
And to the people of Tittington, just in case
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:15 AM on September 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
“If you don’t find these TVs as funny as I do, fuck you.”
This line is solid gold.
posted by hototogisu at 4:52 AM on September 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
This line is solid gold.
posted by hototogisu at 4:52 AM on September 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
I would suspect that a few things are in play here:
Firstly, British room sizes tend not to be very large, plus it's normal to film rooms with a fairly wide lens. You're going to want to set up your camera in a corner or a doorway. You'll probably end up shifting some of the furniture about to the sides of the room so that you don't have un-telegenic things in awkward places for the shot. In my living room, there's a sofa across the middle of the room. A TV crew would probably move it to the side somewhere to 'open up' the room.
Secondly, most UK homes, even relatively large/wealthy ones, tend to have just one big TV. It's probably the same elsewhere in the world. They might also have one in the main bedroom or a kid's room, but those are often very small (e.g. 14"). Given smaller room sizes, there's less need for a big TV, and anyway, you're just watching the morning news or a DVD of a kids' film or something. Second or third TVs really only became a thing in the early 2000s, when CRTs were going out of production and the big flat screens were still very expensive. A lot of people still have the smaller ones that they bought at the time. Given the age of the show, most of those will now have been replaced by the ubiquitous smart TV, probably a larger one.
Lastly, there's still a class element. I can remember hearing people say that you could tell a working-class living home from the fact that the seating is always around the TV. And given that larger, countryside homes are to a vast degree owned by older people, the idea that it's a bit vulgar to have a big telly in a prominent place is very much still around. Many of the homes of richer people that I've met over the years have had surprisingly small TVs, usually tucked out of the way. TV viewing is most definitely not a social activity in these homes. The TV itself is often deliberately hidden or at least minimised in some way, to signal that it's not important to the owner.
posted by pipeski at 5:56 AM on September 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
Firstly, British room sizes tend not to be very large, plus it's normal to film rooms with a fairly wide lens. You're going to want to set up your camera in a corner or a doorway. You'll probably end up shifting some of the furniture about to the sides of the room so that you don't have un-telegenic things in awkward places for the shot. In my living room, there's a sofa across the middle of the room. A TV crew would probably move it to the side somewhere to 'open up' the room.
Secondly, most UK homes, even relatively large/wealthy ones, tend to have just one big TV. It's probably the same elsewhere in the world. They might also have one in the main bedroom or a kid's room, but those are often very small (e.g. 14"). Given smaller room sizes, there's less need for a big TV, and anyway, you're just watching the morning news or a DVD of a kids' film or something. Second or third TVs really only became a thing in the early 2000s, when CRTs were going out of production and the big flat screens were still very expensive. A lot of people still have the smaller ones that they bought at the time. Given the age of the show, most of those will now have been replaced by the ubiquitous smart TV, probably a larger one.
Lastly, there's still a class element. I can remember hearing people say that you could tell a working-class living home from the fact that the seating is always around the TV. And given that larger, countryside homes are to a vast degree owned by older people, the idea that it's a bit vulgar to have a big telly in a prominent place is very much still around. Many of the homes of richer people that I've met over the years have had surprisingly small TVs, usually tucked out of the way. TV viewing is most definitely not a social activity in these homes. The TV itself is often deliberately hidden or at least minimised in some way, to signal that it's not important to the owner.
posted by pipeski at 5:56 AM on September 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
The TVs don't look that small. Only the one of the chest of drawers looks badly placed. Some of the sofas look like they could be moved if people wanted to watch the tv better. I think it's only slightly weird and that amount of weirdness is probably best explained by the film crew having rearranged the room. Overall, the whole programme is bonkers, particularly the fact that no one really ever buys one of the houses.
posted by plonkee at 7:36 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by plonkee at 7:36 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
We stayed in a tiny, run down hotel when we visited Milan back around 1996. We had internet access at home by then, but this was way before booking hotels online was a thing. Plus we were on a very tight budget, and tiny inexpensive hotels didn't have websites or photos available at all. Anyway, this place was in a quiet, residential, decent looking area in Milan, can't remember exactly, but near public transport so we were happy. I remember the TV was on a nightstand between two tiny beds, facing the towards our feet if we were laying down with heads on the pillow! The other thing I remembered about this place was that when we returned after dark to go to sleep, the entire neighborhood was full of sex workers out on the corners, dressed like they came from Central Casting in Hollywood.
And yeah, these rooms are staged for the TV show.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:27 AM on September 10, 2023
And yeah, these rooms are staged for the TV show.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:27 AM on September 10, 2023
My favorite "Escape to the Country" game is "what inappropriate furniture is in the kitchen". It might be an American view but upholstered living room sets don't belong in the kitchen. Not when there's a "snug" (WTF that is) and a parlor.
posted by fiercekitten at 8:35 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by fiercekitten at 8:35 AM on September 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
oh it's totally a class thing. Pretending you don't watch telly by hiding it somewhere and not having any of the furniture facing it. How do I know? My childhood involved leaning over the arm of the sofa squinting at the tiny tv in the corner of the room because my mum, in reality a murder-mystery addict, honestly believed "we barely ever watch it". My aunt kept hers in a wooden cabinet and we had to ask her to unlock it. No joke. None of the stiff backed chairs in that room faced it. Totally nuts.
posted by EllaEm at 8:37 AM on September 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by EllaEm at 8:37 AM on September 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
My English cousins kept their little TV in the closet; they refused to pay the TV license fee, so they only brought it out to watch movies on special occasions.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:59 AM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by BungaDunga at 8:59 AM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
It's really common in upper middle class UK homes to knock together two back rooms (probably formerly the kitchen and dining room) and then extend the whole thing into the garden, to make a big combo living/kitchen/dining/hangout room, so it's possible to cook while watching the kids or otherwise socialising. The resulting space often gets a sofa.
This kind of rearrangement often leaves a poky room at the front, which is the "snug", meaning the room for when someone wants to get away from the havoc that is a single massive room with their whole family in it.
posted by quacks like a duck at 9:57 AM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
This kind of rearrangement often leaves a poky room at the front, which is the "snug", meaning the room for when someone wants to get away from the havoc that is a single massive room with their whole family in it.
posted by quacks like a duck at 9:57 AM on September 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
@fiercekitten: same. My wife shudders every time she sees an upholstered sofa in a kitchen on Escape to the Country. “Put that in one of the 3 snugs FFS!”
That all said we love Alistair Appleton.
posted by terrapin at 10:01 AM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
That all said we love Alistair Appleton.
posted by terrapin at 10:01 AM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
No no, these are regular size tvs
For the benefit of people too young to remember much of the CRT era, these are all large tvs. Regular size is 13 inch, largish is 19 inch, anything bigger than that is large.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:44 AM on September 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
For the benefit of people too young to remember much of the CRT era, these are all large tvs. Regular size is 13 inch, largish is 19 inch, anything bigger than that is large.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:44 AM on September 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
My mum would also insist all children's cartoon were vulgar and common. Except Count Duckula. We could watch that as often as we wanted because she thought it was absolutely hilarious. You might spot the theme here...
We tease her about all these things now :-) Her tv has finally moved into just about eye-line of the sofa as she's mellowed in her old age, but it's still barely larger than a laptop screen.
posted by EllaEm at 11:21 AM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
We tease her about all these things now :-) Her tv has finally moved into just about eye-line of the sofa as she's mellowed in her old age, but it's still barely larger than a laptop screen.
posted by EllaEm at 11:21 AM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
It's really common in upper middle class UK homes to knock together two back rooms (probably formerly the kitchen and dining room) and then extend the whole thing into the garden
Yes, although I'd say it's also a middle-middle and lower-middle class thing to do also. Particularly in a 1930s or 1950s semi. Proper upper-middles are extending into the side return, which has the same effect but starts with a Victorian/Edwardian terrace.
posted by plonkee at 1:55 PM on September 10, 2023
Yes, although I'd say it's also a middle-middle and lower-middle class thing to do also. Particularly in a 1930s or 1950s semi. Proper upper-middles are extending into the side return, which has the same effect but starts with a Victorian/Edwardian terrace.
posted by plonkee at 1:55 PM on September 10, 2023
For the benefit of people too young to remember much of the CRT era, these are all large tvs. Regular size is 13 inch, largish is 19 inch, anything bigger than that is large.
My first tv when I moved out of home was a tiny CRT affair, with a clear plastic case designed to look like a baby imac. It was blue. The entire screen could be obscured by a cigarette pack. Like if you're gunna call it tiny, I want to see single digits when we're talking about the screen size.
posted by Jilder at 9:35 PM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
My first tv when I moved out of home was a tiny CRT affair, with a clear plastic case designed to look like a baby imac. It was blue. The entire screen could be obscured by a cigarette pack. Like if you're gunna call it tiny, I want to see single digits when we're talking about the screen size.
posted by Jilder at 9:35 PM on September 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
When I was in college (circa 1983) my dorm roommate had a color TV with a big beautiful 9" diagonal screen. We'd have 10-15 people watching during basketball and football seasons.
posted by Billiken at 6:47 AM on September 11, 2023
posted by Billiken at 6:47 AM on September 11, 2023
> British bathrooms do not have standard power sockets in them, our electrical safety rules forbid it.
Are electric toothbrushes not a thing there?
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:11 PM on September 11, 2023
Are electric toothbrushes not a thing there?
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:11 PM on September 11, 2023
> When I was in college (circa 1983) my dorm roommate had a color TV with a big beautiful 9" diagonal screen
When I was in college a few years later my dorm roommate had a portable B&W TV with a screen the size of an index card. We'd all huddle around it to watch Jump Street.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:12 PM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
When I was in college a few years later my dorm roommate had a portable B&W TV with a screen the size of an index card. We'd all huddle around it to watch Jump Street.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:12 PM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
"No drama, no resolution, no anything. Nothing bad happens, and nothing good happens. You are just 45 minutes closer to death."
posted by bacalao_y_betun at 1:10 PM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by bacalao_y_betun at 1:10 PM on September 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
When I was a youngin’ in the 70s I had a small 13” B&W set with a mono earpiece in my bedroom. When my mother wanted to watch something not suitable for my age (Soap and Hot L Baltimore come to mind) she would tell me to watch something in my room. So I’d watch exactly what she didn’t want me to watch with the mono earpiece in my ear.
posted by terrapin at 1:19 PM on September 11, 2023
posted by terrapin at 1:19 PM on September 11, 2023
Are electric toothbrushes not a thing there?
Yes, we either have a special bathroom socket, with a current limit and an isolation transformer, or else we put the charger in the bedroom.
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:40 PM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yes, we either have a special bathroom socket, with a current limit and an isolation transformer, or else we put the charger in the bedroom.
posted by quacks like a duck at 1:40 PM on September 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
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