Michele Hewitson: Let the battle begin

I was beeping well going to write about Holmes' new talk show but, beep it, I'm going to put it off for as long as beeping possible.

And the best way to do this seems to be to talk about that box thing that is now sitting in what seems to me to be an ever-increasing line-up of boxes that do arcane things and live in the living room. They take up a lot of space and I don't really know how to work any of them. At least I didn't, until recently.

I put off learning how to work MySky for as long as possible because it looked complicated and came with yet another remote to add to the line-up of remotes, none of which I know how to use. This has long suited the bloke.

Not so long ago, the expression "so easy a child could use it" had another meaning. Now "so easy a child could use it" means that an adult (or me) is going to have the greatest of difficulty using something with lots of complicated buttons and arrows and funny symbols. At least they look funny to me.

"You must be the only person in the world who doesn't know what a pause symbol is," said the bloke while giving me lessons on how to do MySky. He was about to bugger off for a week and I needed to record things, hence the long-put-off lesson.

Ha! Bet he regrets that little jaunt away now because I am, if I say so myself, beeping excellent at doing tricky things with MySky.

Why, I can even record things like Holmes' new talk show. Oh, beep it. I'm not ready yet. How I wish the bloke had, as I rashly accused, deleted it with one wee push of a tiny button. MySky is pretty good but even it can't do wonders for your eyesight.

Anyway, when I thought he HAD deleted the beeping thing, I pretended to be utterly outraged and started writing a column about how, while MySky may be near miraculous in it's idiot proof-ness, it does nothing for domestic harmony.

On our planner programme, which tells you what you've recorded, there are listed The Dogs of War, 2x Battle of Britain, Saving Private Ryan, 4x I Claudius and three yet-to-be-watched episodes of the excellent America's Next Top Model.

I am not allowed to watch ANTM because it is beeping vacuous rubbish, apparently. That is rather the point of it, actually.

It's all very well being able to record and store this stuff at the touch of a button but I really think MySky should include a facility which allows for equal His and Hers storage rights.

And a system which allows for Her to be able to watch one episode of ANTM for every viewing of Battle of Britain.

That would do away with much beeping.

Right, so did you see Holmes and Lucy Lawless beeping at each other? Beep, that was funny. Did you see Holmes ask Theresa Gattung - in the segue of the year, given that his other studio guest was a singer - "did you want to be a pop star at all?"

And did you see him ask Lawless "who are you?" Is there a song in that?

Beeping amazing. That's all I want to say about it. But thank you very much MySky for making it so easy to record those truly unforgettable television moments of our time.