Adverts do of course have one big advantage though. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has wanted the toilet or cup of tea or a sandwich and have waited till the break in the program.

On that line, the tv card I put in my computer offers a useful feature I'd never seen before. I can go into something I think they call "time shift". What it means is that I can take a break when I want and simply resume watching from where I left off. It records the lets say 10-15 minute gap on the hard disk and continues to play from there.