One of the diseases of modern life is fear of missing something. Not just news, but good programmes on the box, films, articles in the papers and magazines. We fill our lives with information and entertainment. It gets so bad with me that I’ll have the radio on at the same time as the TV, and even then start channel hopping. Then there are the ritual events: Monday night is this, Tuesday night is that. Saturday afternoon is the other. There a confortable ritual about some of it, so that even if you have a device to record programmes, one still watches them live. It just seems more exciting that way.
The same with the Sunday papers, or certain radio shows. Then there’s the occasion of going out to the Cinema, still fun. Not to mention the occasional totally indulgent visit to the video shops (well DVD shop really) and getting six hours of total rubbish.
Well, if you want to be cured of that disease, try Kinshasa. There are satellite services, yes. A French one which is free: Canal +, dubbed bad American films with sport thrown in, and TV5, earnest documentaries, silly game shows and 1950s style news. And if you want to lash out there’s the South African system, which has got a huge variety, but is very expensive. No doubt we’ll succumb to it in due course, but meanwhile, no TV.
And if you want to go to the cinema? Good luck – I haven’t found one yet, although the hotel put a projector in the pool area for the African Cup of Nations: that was like the drive-in cinema without the cars. Same story for video shops. They must exist, but I haven’t seen any yet.
Newspapers? Yes, there are dozens of them, typically put together by a tiny band of journalists who haven’t got the money to collect news, so instead write gossip. Some of it is virulent political gossip – it’s not well enough informed or considered to be comment. The rest of the paper is made up with reader’s letters and wire service material.
The flip side of this situation is that getting oneself featured in a newspaper is easy: you pay. No self-respecting journalist in the DRC will write something about you if you don’t. This is not considered unethical, but the straightforward need to survive.
And then, quite by chance, twiddling the car radio I come across an English station on FM. The radio screen says BBC WS. Yes, the real thing: BBC! Auntie Beeb herself, being broadcast on a local frequency. Gone are those days of hunting for the best frequency on short wave (desperate twiddling from 9.75 to 15.40 Mz, or 6.005 to 17.04 Mz), and trying to hear the content through the crackle.
There is a downside. Part of the day is in French, which probably explains why it is being broadcast in the DRC at all. But the French is beautifully clear. Anyway, I try and maximise my exposure to French, so this is wholly a good thing. But there are times when the strain of trying to digest a foreign language gets too much, and you feel like just listening – not working at the same time. And in the evenings, and some of the week end, they have the most wonderful programmes. They discuss the news in an intelligent way; evaluate political events, get ideas from people who can think. What a wonderful respite from the sound-bite world of television news. And philosophy and science programmes. Unbelievable. All conducted at a comfortably measured pace.
I think a lot of our stress these days comes from the constant battering our minds receive from the media, and especially advertising. But if I have to choose between the Beeb, sensible, informative, peaceful, even clever sometimes; and a crazy show like CSI on the box, I would probably choose CSI. That’s certainly not a rational decision. But for now I don’t have a choice, so I’m making the most of it, and really loving it.
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