You find me here, slumped on a chair, half asleep and a mess. Beer can in one hand, near empty crisp packet in the other. Sitting. Staring. Focused fully on the television. HypoTee, a channel devoted solely to programmes that have hypnotic powers and can thus cure you from the comfort of your own home. It works in specials, with the most prominent and greater fears being dealt with more regularly. For example, between three and four pm every Tuesday, you'll find a programme dedicated to arachnophobia, even in its mildest forms, yeah only once every month or so will you find a show dedicated to philophobia, the fear of falling in love, granted that it does, in fact, take way longer than a one hour show to cure you of this devastating fear.
    These bastards. They have it all figured out. And right after the hydrophobia special (Thursday nights, eleven pm until midnight), you'll find all the right advertisements; cruises, white-water rafting activity days. They heal you then sell you commodities that you'll want to prove to yourself that you are indeed over the fear. Well. Not me. I'll take your free help and I'll give you your ratings but there's no chance in hell you're getting my money off me, you penny pinching bastards.
    It's not just fears they cure either, you'll find addictions, even also in the mildest forms, on there too. Alcoholic? Just tune in Mondays (five pm until six) and Wednesdays (seven pm until either) and you'll gradually find yourself a step closer to enlightenment. Wouldn't it make a little more sense for these shows to be on later at night and perhaps at the weekends, thus encouraging those who would like help to stay in, and thus away from booze and peer pressure, to watch the show and gain their much needed help?
    And they're clever too. They arrange meet up points for people such as smokers so they can all congregate in the one place, a place where they pay for entry, and since it's a hired hall, and thus a place of work, they can't can not smoke inside. It's, therefore, incredibly effective and brings in the people by the hundreds each week. Last I heard there was even a waiting list. Who has time to wait if they want to give up smoking? And I bet any celebs out there looking to give up wouldn't have to put their name on no waiting list. Foolish. Foolish Foolish.
    And yet, while you find shows dedicated to curing people from many addictions, from the traumatising and potentially fatal addiction to alcohol and cigarettes to the ever so trivial act of nail biting, you'll never ever find a single show dedicated to those amongst us who are addicted to television. Not only can they handle the brutal irony, but I guess they're just too scared to put themselves on the line. Too scared that people might figure them out. Might grow to hate their petty advertising schemes and their uber-patronisation. In fact, for some programs that draw in the larger audiences, they're split into two parts. They're attempting to draw you back! Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy of the highest order!
    There's one thing it can't do though and that's deal with mental problems. Mental anguish. It can't console you. It can't tell you everything is going to be fine, other than for one small section of life at a time. It can't replace a doctor and it can't replace a friend. And it is in this factor that I have come to hate this channel and all it stands for.
    Yet, here I am. An addict. Addicted to it's sweet, warm glow. Addicted to its messages and its friendly faces. I won't buy what it tries to sleep in its adverts but I'll stick with it through everything else. Day in, day out. You'll find me. On the couch. Beer in hand, crisps in hand. Were I to live long enough, I'd soon have trouble viewing the idiot box over my enormous belly in my horribly lazy slouched, fatigued "fat guy" posture. I hope that this image makes you groan uneasily because I deserve it.
    There's another thing this channel didn't count on by not covering the mental anguish range. How it could be used against people with mental anguish. Well here I am. A pioneer. Christopher Columbus. Isaac Newton. Only, I'm not really out there benefiting mankind, although I could argue that I'm taking one for the team. Opening the eyes of the public. The nation. The world. This groundbreaking channel may be saving people but they're also financially and mentally raping them. And while people and the channel sit around thinking it's the best concept and, indeed, even the best thing ever (the phrase "the best thing since white bread" has since been replaced with "the best thing since HypnoTee". White bread has also been rendered obsolete for challenging HypnoTee for the title of "best thing...") yet there is one key point that no-one, other than myself seemingly, has taken into account.
    Yes, I do watch the show. And yes, I do think it is helping many a great deal. But here I lay, depressed and motionless, starting blankly. I'm being hypnotised. But I'm being hypnotised for something I wish not to be hypnotised for. I'm having part of my memory that I'd rather keep erased. And once this shows done I'll do the same again with the next show, removing much loved brain cells, and then the next. Until eventually, while sitting here, cheap, store brand lager in one hand, flavourless, unenjoyable crisps in the other, I'll be erased. All my fears shall have been devoured, I'll have no fear of spiders or water or hoovers, and I'll have lost any desire to drink or smoke or induce any pollutants. You may think that this would make me the ideal human but it wouldn't. Without fear there is no love, and without addiction there is no moderation and without any of this there is no life. HypnoTee will have killed me.