Before the interwebs there was The Internet, and before that there was VHS, and before that there was plain old analog television. Remember TV? Remember wasting your life aimlessly rotating through those five measly channels? My housemate is still rotating, and it drives me nuts. For Christ’s sake, commit to a channel and mute the commercials. Or are you actually watching three separate programmes?

Anyway. Clive James belongs to the same hallowed generation of Australian expats as Germaine Greer and Barry Humphries. Back in the seventies he made it big writing a weekly television column in The Observer. Nobody remembers this early work, but at the time it was groundbreaking. Even today an intelligent column about television – as opposed to the lazy pap you see in the weekend broadsheets – is a rare thing. James made it okay for the intellectual classes to think about – and occasionally enjoy – pop culture.

What’s more, television started to be taken seriously as a medium in its own right. The Crystal Bucket is the second of a three-volume collection of his Observer columns – and all three are well worth looking for, especially if you’re fresh out of excuses for that crippling TV habit. -Stan