THE BIG ISSUE The Big Issue - 11 January 2016 | Page 6

WorldMags.net OFF THE GRID... THE EDITOR T here are 10,000 people in Britain who still watch TV on black and white sets. Just consider that for a moment. Out there, amongst us, there are people who still aren’t clear about what colour snooker ball follows another. I know colour TVs can be used for other things – sumptuous costume d ra ma s; a ny t h i ng w it h Dav id Attenborough in water/on ice/in the jungle; Celebrity Antiques Road Trip – but they are mere trifles. There are some people who don’t know of the incredible difference in colour tone between Donald Trump’s bizarre orange face and his pale, pale hands. Maybe you’re one of those brave souls who still see the world as it was pre-1967. If you are, I salute you. There is something quietly affirming about the decision to stick to black and white. Maybe you prefer to do something else. Like listen to the radio. The radio is still an unexplored wilderness of delight, if we let ourselves be taken there. Over Christmas I was spinning through the dial (yes, an old radio) and I happened on an odd noise on Radio 3. It was Stockhausen’s Hymnen. I’d previously dismissed Stockhausen as pretentious baloney. Yet, there I was, totally transfixed, taken into a new, diicult world. Perhaps, the B&W massive haven’t gone immediately to Stockhausen. Rather, they may choose to stay as they are because they are part of that great tradition of great British eccen- trics. I read recently of Sir William Lawrence Bragg. He was one of the youngest ever winners of the Nobel Prize for Physics, picking it up in 1915 as a 25-year-old for working out something incredible about X-rays. He went on to be involved with the discovery of the structure of DNA with Crick and Watson. Yet, Bragg loved gardening. So much, that when he first moved to London in a place without a garden he decided to work four days a week in the lab and take a gardening job on the fifth day. He worked, unknown by his employer, until a guest asked why the great sci- entist Bragg was pruning the hedges. I’d like to believe that Bragg, if around now, would have a B&W TV licence. And that, today, amongst the 10,000 there are many great thinkers and inventors, delighted by oddities and curiosities. Last week, in response to exasper- ated parents admitting they were finding it difficult to remove their children from iPads and other devices, the government issued some tips and guidelines. They’re REALLY getting into issuing guidelines at the moment, the government. Some of these may help, but most will not prevent the tractor-beam draw of tiny screens. The answer, though, is right under our noses. Enlist the black and white 10,000, the small but significant army of non-conformists who, as Why Don’t You? suggested we do, have gone outside and found something much more interesting to do. Use them as our guides. Think of that future. The answer lies in black and white Paul McNamee is editor of The Big Issue [email protected] @pauldmcnamee FROM THE VAULT... JANUARY 2008 NO 778 In our hard-hitting cover story we talk to families whose loved ones have disappeared. Kelly Macdonald tells us about her film No Country for Old Men, and politician Grant Shapps writes about his ‘nightmare’ spending a n