He Who Would Be King

In our house, the person with the TV remote control is king.  But you can say goodbye to your dreams of happy tyranny.  In our house, it's more of a constitutional monarchy: you have to bow to the will of the majority, whilst being criticised from all sides on your performance.  Scan through the list of channels and you will be too fast for one person, too slow for another, sometimes simultaneously.  If the program is recorded you may be expected to scoot through advert breaks, but if you inadvertently miss the point where the program starts up again and provide an unexpected speeded-up preview of the next five minutes of action, there is a chorus of disapproval from the sofa.

Not surprisingly, any full-grown adult in the house has long since abdicated from the responsibility of wielding the remote.  Power struggles consume the younger members of the house.  In the absence of any moral direction from us, they are evolving their own system of natural justice.  The principles are, roughly:

Rule 1. If you are already watching something, it is unfair to throw you off.  The longer you have invested in watching something the more likely you are to complete it.
Rule 2. The more times you have already watched something, the less powerfully the argument in rule 1 holds.  If you can prove that you have never even been present in the room while this particular episode of Futurama/Simpsons/Supernanny was showing before then you will be allowed to see it out.  This means that you can't suddenly reveal that you actually know what happens in the end (a subtlety not always grasped).
Rule 3. If you are listening to your iPod/playing Angry Birds/sleeping, then it is a moot point whether you are actually watching a program or not.  This may undermine any claim you make under rule 1, but support any claim you make under rule 2.
Rule 4.  If you consent to watch a program because the other person wants to watch it, they are duty bound to watch something that you want to watch in return.  The more you dislike their program, the higher the value of the trade to you.  So if you can demonstrate complete revulsion for Countdown, you may earn an episode of Merlin.  Cue for savage attack on the very existence of teatime game shows from my son.

The only ruling that I have been able to impose is that if we must watch Jeremy Kyle, we have to switch it off when my head starts to hurt.

 These wars of the remote can be amusing to onlookers, but seriously bruising to the participants.  Don't get me wrong: Julie and her brother never fight physically, only verbally, and I have never once heard either of them launch a personal attack on the other.  Once the outcome is decided, they quickly settle down without either gloating or bearing a grudge.  They are otherwise perfectly tolerant of each other, and sometimes show each other real affection.  But these power struggles over the TV can still be a source of real distress to Julie.  These days I often have to weigh in, despite desperately wanting to stay out.

Before Julie went into hospital, she was more often the victor.  She was an easy match for her brother, two years younger than her.  In those days, I used to have to keep an eye out for him, as he struggled to fight his corner against her coolly superior authority.  But after she had spent a year in the hospital, and he had spent a year in glorious sole possession of the remote, the tables turned.  He now easily has the upper hand: he is quick-witted, acerbic and dry.  During that year he has grown out of childhood into a relentlessly curious, articulate youth.  Julie is slowed down by the weight of illness and medication.  Words come out wrongly and are cheerfully turned on their head by her brother.  Her anger and frustration overwhelm her and she is reduced to tears.  He has no idea what happened - he was just being his normal mercurial self.  It is pointless asking him to be more gentle with her; the last thing she needs is pity.  Meanwhile, her voices unleash a savage torrent of abuse inside her head - words that her brother would never dream of saying to her.  Julie's difficulties coping with this everyday power struggle over the remote are a sobering reminder of how the illness has affected her.