National Day

The illustration is of a television set manufactured in 2003 and bought by my in-laws in Switzerland. Later in that year Max and Irm were murdered. The set found its place in their daughter's household in Munich.

Briefly it was installed in my flat here when I returned from the Sandlands... just for a few months. But now it is back again. The reason is that mother and daughter are now habitually watching video content on their tablets on demand. The set was simply taking up space in their living room.

In consequence the decade-old JVC is now with me once again. And I find myself connecting cables today, the Swiss National Day. But it is not just the provenance of the device which makes me thoughtful. I, too, have lost the habit of watching television. My evenings are happily filled with reading the eBooks I download from Amazon. Will this now change?

Or will the television set simply remind me of the sad loss which so shocked us in 2003?