And why not?

As a youngster, late-night TV - whether or not the show does a This Life and contains naughty images - has a wonderfully illicit feel to it. You know you should really go to bed, because you have school early the next day, but fuck it, let's stay up anyway! 

As a working man, I still have the "ya, boo, sucks!" attitude to going to bed early on a school night, even though it leaves me feeling completely shagged the next day. Why? Because this is MY time. It is MY evening and I will spend it how I bloody well like! School or work (or both if you are a teacher or parent) take over enough of your life as it is, so I really despair when people have to go to bed early because they have to work the next day.

The worst thing about TV is that pretty much all of the shows I want to watch are on late at night. When the Beeb used to show Seinfeld, it was on at 11.15pm at the earliest. So what am I supposed to do - watch some crap like My Hero or the Brittas Empire instead and go to bed early, or bypass that crap, spend a couple of hours doing whatever, maybe even a snooze on the sofa, watch a decent programme and THEN go to bed?

Of course, there is a thing called a video recorder, but programmes always seem better "live" - particularly shite films like The Tower, which I would never feel compelled to watch at other times, but  late at night, I just have to watch it through to its inevitable conclusion.

You know, maybe I should actually applaud the schedulers for putting on crap movies and decent programmes like Film 2008 (this song is the theme tune), at such an ungodly hour, as it helps me maintain my rebellious streak. "You see that chap at the desk over there? He's really gone off the rails - he told me he doesn't go to bed until 1am sometimes!"