Hello Ladies,

Have you ever noticed the obsession that males seem to have with remote control devices for the TV? I am sure you have as this is a well documented phenomenon.  Explanations for this phenomenon range from it being a sort of caveman thing, keeping the little woman in her place - to these devices having some sort of phallic significance.

The male who I am unfortunate enough to share living space with is particularly attached to the remote control, in fact, it is quite some time since I have managed to get my hands on it when we are watching TV together.  Result being, TV chez Portia is a continuous diet of Bruce Willis films, documentaries about the Second World War and other tediousnesses.

Recently however, something happened to challenge my view of the male obsession with the remote control - it happened thus:-

A few days back, the batteries on the remote control ran out.  The male, being the lazy sort of git he is, was unable to drag himself away from the sofa for long enough to buy some new batteries, and besides, he lacks the necessary technical expertise to actually fit them.

So, he tried to enlist my help and turn me into his human remote control.  Here is a small sample of a typical exchange on the subject.

Male - Portia?

Me - What?

Male - The remote control isnt working (thinking 'perhaps she knows how to fix it?')

Me - I know (thinking 'if this dickhead does not know how to change the ******* batteries on a remote control, I am so NOT teaching him how to do it)

Male - Portia?

Me - WHAT?

Male - Change the channel and turn up the volume would you?

Portia exits seething and heads for her lair

Male - What did I say now?

Male continues to watch 'The shopping channel' where a man is persuading housewifes that they cannot live without this new improved cucumber slicer because he is too bone idle to shift his carcass to the TV and change channels.

This went on for several days, with me keeping to my lair upstairs and the male downstairs, watching the shopping channel, convinced that somehow the TV is stuck and that the bitch upstairs was inflicting mental cruelty on him.  Male starts to sink into bleak depressive state.

At this point I was faced with several choices

a) call doctor to administer anti depressant medication

b) kill male

c) buy the ******* batteries myself and fit them for the sake of the communal peace.

As option a was a waste of NHS resources far better spent on people with real illnesses and option b would result in unfortunate tabloid publicity and a spell in jail, despite my counsel's pleas of extreme provocation - I decided to take myself off to the shops and get the ******* batteries.

On returning to base with the batteries, I unpacked them and fitted them into the back of the remote control.  The male did not thank me or even look even the remotest bit impressed with my technical abilities - he merely gleefully grabbed the remote control and surfed and grazed the channels to his heart's content....miraculous cure for depression.

After this experience, I have come to the conclusion that the remote control is not about male domination or remote controls being plastic penises - it is about a far more ancient instinct than that.  The remote control harks back to the days when males used to wander off for days on the prairies hunting for food.  Having the remote control is the modern man's equivalent of this wandering.  He surfs around the channels for hours, pouncing on whatever tasty morsels he finds.

I retire to my lair, leaving the male to commune with his primeval self.

I wonder if a trip to Tescos to get the weekly shop in would appeal to the Hunter within?

Portia