1705: Weekender

[Forgot to publish this last night. So here it is now for your delectation.]

It’s the end of another week, and as a newcomer to the traditional nine-to-five I’m already discovering the joys of Friday. I haven’t gone so far as to start saying “TGIF” and all that yet, but I can certainly see the appeal of kicking off the weekend.

Although thinking about it, Fridays always used to be “special” a certain degree. Not in the same way as like a birthday or a holiday, of course, but obviously… nice.

My fondest memories of Fridays were, I think, from when I was still at school. Back then, Friday was Good TV Night — this was the pre-digital era, so we only had four channels and consequently Good TV Night was a bigger deal. Also TV shows were better. But I digress.

Yes, Good TV Night started about 9pm with Friends — one of several shows that I insisted on videotaping every episode of — closely followed by a show at 9.30 that I usually didn’t care about, like Cybill, followed by Frasier. If we were lucky, Whose Line is it Anyway? would be on after that too.

Okay, Good TV Night was actually just two, possibly three, good shows, but it was a nice way to round off the week. It felt special and symbolic — after that, there would be two glorious days of not having to do all that much.

Friday now is somewhat less symbolic in the same way. The advent of video on demand has made Good TV Night a thing of the past — why be held to the behest of the schedulers when you can watch whatever you want when you want? — and this has left Friday itself feeling more like an opportunity to just zonk out and relax than anything else.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course. We all need time to relax and unwind after a week of, in most cases, being at least partially mature and responsible.

So that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. And that’s exactly what I intend to spend most of the next two days doing, too.