If I’m to watch BBC iPlayer instead of live TV, it’ll have to be better than this

A man is holding a remote control of a smart TV in his hand. In the background you can see the television screen
With TV there is either a surfeit of choice or there isn’t a pixel in sight - Getty Images

There is plenty about modern life to cause celebration and aggravation in equal measure. Thankfully, old hand Christopher Howse and young gun Guy Kelly are here to dissect the way we live now...

Confronted by the umpteenth Rolex watch on Antiques Roadshow valued at a sum breathtaking to the owner but of no interest to me, I began to hanker after dear old Arthur Negus in Going for a Song, running his finger down the slats of a wooden chair back and remarking quietly with his West Country burr: “Just look at the beading...”

So, when I was searching for some other item online, I was surprised to find some episodes of Going for a Song on the BBC iPlayer. Disappointment soon set in. There was Arianna Stassinopoulos in her Bernard Levin phase, still only 25, in a lovely green dress, her hair a-sheen. Her fellow celebrity guest was Simon Williams, a fixture as James Bellamy in Upstairs, Downstairs, in an unwise white roll-neck sweater. But it was so stilted. Who was that sneery man in the middle calling Simon “James” by mistake? Oh yes, Max Robertson, a famous Wimbledon commentator. Everyone seemed nervous, which made the celebs talk nonsense about the antiques they inspected. Arthur Negus was tetchy. “You expect me to be able to say something about a lute?” “Anything about the wood, Arthur?” “No, thank you.”

But I don’t quite understand why only four episodes of Going for a Song are on iPlayer. Did they chuck away the rest? I had been on the verge of abandoning television as a live entertainment like the theatre. My television has expired from a sort of blocked artery. But if I’m to watch iPlayer it’ll have to be better than this. I wouldn’t mind watching John Freeman on iPlayer interviewing Carl Jung on Face to Face, but where’s the episode with Gilbert Harding?

That interview from 1960 with the most popular personality on television caused the greatest controversy of the whole remarkable series. “Not currently available,” says the BBC. Well, that’s no good. I could get it, at a price, on DVD, but my laptop at home now won’t play DVDs. Like the driver of a diesel car, I feel abandoned by lurches in technological change.

It’s surely the worst part of any modern middle-class dinner party. The moment, in the lull after mains have been cleared, when somebody asks what we’re all watching on TV at the moment. “We’re on Ømto: Origins,” somebody will say. “It’s on Criterion Extra Gold. Mongolian. They don’t call them ‘episodes’ they call them ‘chapters’, and it really is a page-turner. A spin-off from Ømto, which we and half of our NCT group devoured. Michael thinks it’s derivative but you should have seen his face when they killed off the brother...”

“No spoilers, Jenny! No spoilers! More sangiovese? But tell me, have you seen Arguoñito? Oh you must. A devilish little Nicaraguan noir that’s a slow burn but so rewarding. It’s on Hulu Prima+.” “Huzzah! It’s on our list! Right after season four of Subpoena Colada on Apple Fox Max, which has cameos from Sir Simon Russell Beale, the Sultan of Brunei, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and the horse from War Horse.”

At this point I will down my wine and ask if anyone watches something like Race Across the World or Married at First Sight. This will be met with the kind of stunned disdain you’d expect if I’d said we kick back with goat pornography and snuff videos. People used to talk about books, opera or international travel in this way. Streaming has put a new arrow in the quiver of competitive culture vultures.

It is not a factory-fresh observation to say that there is simply too much of everything these days, but there is simply too much of everything – especially TV. It was bad enough when there were millions upon millions of programmes to keep up with, now there are millions upon millions of services to subscribe to. In order to combat this, when rendered catatonic with indecision over what to watch, my wife and I like to go back in time, compromising by pressing “watch live” on BBC One or Two, and taking what we’re given. It’s the televisual equivalent of a set menu, and it feels glorious – even if it means we miss the latest Nicaraguan noir. This does not go down well at dinner parties.