19 JANUARY 1991, Page 40

Television

Spoilt for choice

Martyn Harris

Ihave been watching American televi- sion all week, though I'm not sure if 'watching' is the right word. I witnessed it; it swept over me. I was lulled, enveloped, drugged or even drowned. But watch it? I dunno.

In the mornings, in my New York hotel room, I turned it on when I woke up and listened to Deputy Dawg, Alastair Burnet or Eraserhead dubbed into Spanish. It served the same function as Brian Redhead in England, which is to provide just enough irritation to stop me falling asleep again.

The channel numbers on my set went up to 65, about a third of which seemed to be occupied. Too disorganised to buy a TV guide, I spent most of my time channel- surfing. One night there is Gerard Depar- dieu in The Return of Martin Guerre on Channel 25, which is all right, but the commercials come crashing in every seven minutes. So during the break I flip to Channel 3-for a bit, to watch a programme called This Old House, where a man is showing how to fit a door bolt using only $7,000 worth of power tools.

Commercials crash in again and I switch to Channel 38 to find Robert Powell wearing bugger's grips and weeping over a dying Zulu woman. 'She was the great female elephant,' explains a man in a white tiger-tooth necklace. By now Martin Guer- re should have returned from the break, so I flip back, but another ad break seems to be starting and I'm not sure any more that it was Channel 25, so I go back in search of Robert Powell, only to find Deputy Dawg.

Perhaps Martin Guerre was on 35, but when I try that there's a man called Corley wearing a blonde fringe and nothing else at all, frotting himself to camera — obviously an illusion brought on by solitude and the fractured consciousness induced by channel-hopping. So I zap to Channel 3 where they are advertising Japanese cars, but in Japanese, and the sense of disloca- tion grows.

On Channel 13, Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is saying, 'I continue to support President Bush's original policy . . .' and I press the increment switch on the remote control to roll fast through a dozen channels, catching an infuriating glimpse on the way of Gerard Depardieu's fringe. I roll back quickly before he takes another break, but get trapped on the way by a Gulf phone-in on Channel 27 where Representative Charles Rangel is saying: 'There are only three reasons to send our boys to this place Kerwatt . . . and those reasons are oyul, oyul and oyul.'

Every channel between 2 and 20 is now showing commercials, so I zap back to Channel 35, where the stark-naked Corley is holding his own phone-in with a caller from Wichita. 'I thought you was dead, Corley.' But Corley says no, he's making a new movie. At his side a tired old slut called Robin Byrd in a black lace bikini is giggling hysterically, and we take a break for an ad from something called Voyeur Vision and 'Live phone sex with Lindy'.

On 22 Jed Clampett is discovering oil for the millionth time; on 14 Ronnie Barker is Open All Hours; on 17 John Cole is standing in the snow with his herringbone tweed on; on 2 President Bush is kicking ass; on 35 Robin Byrd is singing a ditty called 'Baby Let Me Bang Your Box'.

I know there are enthusiasts for dereg- ulated TV — The Spectator's Paul Johnson is one — who argue that for all the trash there is such sheer variety on American television that you can assemble an even- ing's viewing richer than that available in Britain. And it might be true in theory, I suppose, on the same principle that it might be possible for a whirlwind to sweep through a junkyard and reassemble a Cadillac limousine. But I never managed it, nor even to arrange the return of Martin Guerre.