I like what I tend to call “low impact documentaries” as my moving wallpaper when I’m home, both when I’m working on something and when I’m just trying to relax. How much I see of these can differ, which has a positive side-effect of allowing me to watch the same thing more than once, especially if I wait a while between showings.

Recently I’ve managed to get hold of a good number of episodes of the British TV series “Time Team”. It’s not 100% documentary technically, but it falls into the same sort of watching. For those who don’t know it, I’ll give a quick overview of what the show is like.

Each episode of Time Team consists of a team of archaeologists going to a site which has (usually) turned up some indications that there might be something in the past. They then do a 3 day exploratory dig to figure out what’s there. This is always limited to 3 days, which provides part of the entertainment component of the show the “will they or won’t they” excitement.

At the end of the 3 day exploration the team presents its finding to the locals or whoever called them in, and of course to the TV audience. There’s no faking the findings either, so if they find absolutely nothing that’s what they’ll have to present.

Which brings me to the episode that prompted me to blog about this show. In an episode in 2007, a dig taking place near the village of Warburton in Cheshire, the Time Team – in the words of presenter Tony Robinson did “… what we’ve always threatened, after a hundred and sixty programmes we found absolutely nothing.”

The episode had been prompted by people finding artefacts while walking a field, but in the end the field proved not to contain any detectable buildings, in fact the only real conclusion about the field was that it had been farmed since Roman times.

But that didn’t mean there weren’t valuable results. Granted I’m not an archaeologist, or even for that matter any other sort of historian. But even so I think I know enough to know that a negative result doesn’t mean no result. By finding out that all the objects found in the field were – in the words of the show – “the background scatter of history” it managed to show that finds in the topsoil don’t mean there has to be something major underneath.

Which I suppose, or at least hope, is part of the explanation for why I like shows like this. There may be an entertainment component in them. And they don’t, generally, even claim to be the greatest form of discovery in history. But they do deal with real evidence and real science, and I like that in a show.

I’ve been looking back at 2008 recently. During my annual wake of course, but also during other moments. And one of the things that I realised is this: I’ve seen almost no TV commercials for a year now. I haven’t watched a lot of TV, and I’ve gotten good at avoiding the commercials when I do (some sort of sixth sense allows me to hit mute at pretty much the right time, and come back without missing too much, having done something else during the actual commercial break).

But the main reason I haven’t seen a lot of commercials isn’t that I’ve gotten so good at avoiding them when I watch TV. The main reason really is that I just don’t watch a lot of TV. What I do watch tends to be BBC a lot, which doesn’t really have commercials, so that’s a further bonus, but the main change, just over a year ago now, was that I re-evaluated what I would and wouldn’t watch on TV.

The basic premise when I sat down to take another good look (if you’ll pardon the pun) at my TV habits was this: would I miss a show enough to record it if I couldn’t be home during an airing, all shows that didn’t meet this basic criterion were immediately axed. Then I decided to go a step further: if my recording failed for some reason, would I mind enough to start trying to download it. Again all shows that garnered a “well if I actually need to spend time looking for it…” got the chop.

I was left with surprisingly little TV too watch once I’d applied those two, and over time I’ve refined it a bit further. I will still watch some shows that don’t make the grade, just as background filler, but about the only place I’ll watch them is the BBC, because there at least I can watch them without commercials. It’s not hard and fast, but it doesn’t need to be to cut out an awful lot of more or less useless time spend in front of the telly. Which gives me more time to find interesting stuff online, or to read (not that I’ll ever have enough time to allow me to read everything I would like to, but at least this allows me to come a little closer than I would otherwise).

It’s 00:55, the new year is less than an hour old, and the fireworks, having receded to just occasional bangs at least a quarter of an hour back, now seem to have gone almost completely. It’ll be sporadic for another few hours, I know that much from experience, but a point of rest is approaching, which means it’s high time to get this blog entry written – though as it’s being written on my PDA it will have to wait a while a before it’s published.

What else can I say about the present moment? I’m at my father’s house for newyears. And I’m the only one still up. I’m sitting by myself in a darkened livingroom. I could, no doubt, put more light on, but for now I prefer to have just a few candles, and the light of my PDA screen as I write this post. The year is now exactly one hour old, and the fireworks are sputtering occasionally outside.

There is a reason I’m sitting here in the darkness, waiting for quiet. It’s not just to write this blog post – it’s important, but not thta important (sorry) – but it’s to do with the fact that I’m still up. In fact I’m highly unlikely to go to sleep any time soon, or indeed before the evening of January first. The only way that’s going to happen is if I really find I can’t last the night.

You see, for the past few years I haven’t slept between the morning of December 31st and the evening of January 1st. Instead I stay up. It started partly when I noticed that New Year’s eve was no longer special. Staying up past midnight is routine for me, in fact sleeping beforer midnight tends to be more special. But just doing something special on this night, something as special as being up until midnight felt when I was younger isn’t the only thing.

There’s something strange, almost magical, about being up in the deepest part of the night, when all human life around you sleeps. It’s as though certain thoughts only come at the times when the brain isn’t usually awake to receive them. A facet of that thought is expressed by Susan Ivanova, in the Babylon 5 epside “The Hour Of The Wolf”, which also mentions quite specifically the moment I too have found to be the “hotspot” for nightly insight: the hour between 03:00 and 04:00 in the morning.

To put it another way, with a slight hint of melodrama if you’ll permit me: always be careful around mirrors between 03:00 and 04:00, at that time of night chances are you actually will see yourself if you looki n them, not just the faint copy they usually show you. And like all insights gained by waking through the night that may be useful, but if it comes at you while you’re unwary, it may not always be welcome.

It’s ten minutes past one now, and the fireworks have fizzled out even further, so I’ll call it quits for this blog entry. The new year has started, and so, for me, has a new wake to ponder what’s happened in the last, and what may happen in the new. It’s an odd habit, and probably not “the thing” for everyone, but I find it works for me.

Update 04:00 – I’ve made it through the most important part of the wake, and am now about to do something I haven’t done for a few years: go to bed. Not to sleep, at least that’s not the intention, but just to lie down. My back’s been acting up the last few days, and it’s starting to again now. Lying on the sofa isn’t going to cut it so I’m going to risk the bed.

Update 09:00 – Just as I’m posting this I’ve been up again for an hour or so. I don’t think I really slept, though I may have dozed of a little bit once or twice. Most of the time was spent in contemplation as intended though, and my back is certainly feeling better than it was about 5 hours ago.