“As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be productive without culture, so the mind without cultivation can never produce good fruit.” Seneca

This week’s great event in Britain is the ‘reveal’ – a marketing abuse where a verb is tortuously converted into a noun – in the soap Eastenders, where millions of people with nothing better to do will discover who killed a character. Not being a watcher, I deduce from what is on while my daughter watches, that a teenager will outsmart all the police, detectives, major incident room staff and hours of overtime, through her own efforts while getting pregnant with the victim’s brother, son or whatever.

TV critics and those with a vested interest in perpetuating this crap would have us believe this is ‘culture’.

It isn’t, except to the degree it is becoming a societal norm – small ‘c’ culture – to zone out and live your life through a wholly false impression of reality. Not that it should be, but it defies reality in the sense that the plotlines do not reflect how relationships really are, or how the world works. I see it because of the police angle – things which are reported to the police in seconds are made to last months in TV land. It’s quite wearing.

Culture – capital ‘c’ – develops the mind, informs it, educates it and makes us better for its existence. Calling chewing gum ‘nouveau cuisine’ won’t improve its flavour, make it healthy, justify an increase in cost or make us better for experiencing it. Soap operas are the same. I think it is telling that the TV awards glut has to have a separate awards show for the soaps, they are that bad.

Stop watching that drivel, read something meaningful instead! Develop your intellect and your character.