WE are all now lost in the dark. Our link with the outside world has been switched off.

The reality did not make any impression on me until Thursday morning, when, queuing for my caffeine shot in the JEP canteen, I suddenly realised that the television was no longer in operation. GMTV, or whatever it is called these days, was off the air – for good.

Apart from this fundamental shock, I have to admit that the advent of the digital switchover has largely passed me by. One reason might be that the UK promoters of the changes have been ramming so much positive spiel through the media that I have already tuned out.

The States’ press release issued this week, for instance, quoted a Digital UK spokesman saying that this was ‘a historic day for TV in the Channel Islands’. Viewers, he said, had ‘responded extremely well’. And goodbye to that terrible, awful thing called analogue – even though it has done us proud for years.

The thing is, I and my generation have seen it all before. We were, after all, the guinea pigs for modern television. Ours were the households that first trialled those ancient and cumbersome black and white television sets.
We were the ones who learned the value of programmes like The Wooden Tops, Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men, Andy Pandy, Mr Pastry and Sooty and Sweep.

We have since seen the dawning of BBC Two – and what a dawning that was – and the bright new look of colour which, in Jersey, came comparatively late. Compared to that excitement, Freeview is but a throwaway invention.

Funnily enough, as television has become ever more monstrous in scope, its value has correspondingly diminished. Apparently the younger generation prefer computer power. Even oldies like me watch the square screen less now than in the past (although I have to admit I would find it difficult to miss my weekly injection of Strictly, which is the perfect antidote to everything and anything remotely serious).

There is one thing I don’t quite understand, however, despite the positive spin and cute little Digital UK logo: how can it be fair that we all pay exactly the same television licence fee as the UK, yet cannot access the same number of Freeview channels?

I do believe the ratio currently stands at 40-plus channels for the UK and only 25 here in the Island.

Strangely enough, there was no mention of this in the press release.