I am television's bitch.

I think I've mentioned before that I work in a media-related job. Not that I mention this when asked about my suitability for paid market research. I consider any marketing company silly enough not to check the job title in my email signature when I respond to their email requests doesn't deserve to cull me from its $70 focus group. And frankly, since they did THIS all bets are off. I digress, the point is that part of my job is to know what's happening in the news and, while I'm lucky to work in a vaguely cerebral field that actually matters to newspapers, everyone who's anyone knows that the only news that counts in politics is what finally makes it to the telly. Most of the time, for people like me, this is a matter of attempting to manage the appearance of bad news. Occasionally, a few times a year, we have a bit of glittery good news and I get to say, 'Quick, look kids, Mummy's on the tv!' Generally, in either case, by virtue of trying to get home and pretend to be a real mother I'm actually sitting on the bus when the news is on and waiting for the SMS alert to beep through on my phone and tell me what all my labours have come to on the tube. Actually, the fact that it's sometimes my job to watch tv is not really the point. The point is that we spent way too long in the Supacentre on this past rainy Sunday and walked out with a modest financial commitment to a very tax-effective lease on a BLOODY ENORMOUS LCD television which will spend 98 per cent of its time playing Shrek and The Incredibles... As I left the house this morning, the sparkle twins were watching Sesame Street on, as they called it, "the big movies". One asked me for popcorn and the other asked if I could please turn the day off. But in the other two per cent of Mega Telly's life? When I have to watch the news? My glittery stories will never have looked so shiny. "Quick kids, come see! Mummy's the Mega Telly's bitch!" mtc bec