One of many reasons why I hate television

and have never owned a receiver :

When I was a kid, people visited each other
to play Whist and Bridge; there were Whist-drives,
and Bridge-drives - there even were Beetle-drives.

Then came Canasta which I played for hours
with my schoolfriends, Monopoly too,
then Scrabble.  In 1960 my mother and I played
Bézique on the grubby train from Paris to Venice.
I loved Bézique because it, like Pinochle, was a game
that two people could play and enjoy.

TV almost killed off social games not played for money;
the hygienic internet has re-introduced them -
antisocially. No-one and nobody's mother will bring you
a cup of tea or of coffee with biscuits, nor a glass of sherry
or grappa or raki - nothing to make the occasion more merry.