I have a loud-speaker system.

I’m not sure where exactly I got it from.  It may have accidentally slipped into my pocket when I left work, or I may have bought it.  It doesn’t really matter where it came from – the fact is that it exists.

Originally I hooked it up to a computer, which is what it is designed for, but the computer blew up shortly after.  I hope that was just a coincidence.  Leastwise, the speakers have been sitting there doing nothing for the last ten years or so.  It is a complicated thing with a dirty great sub-woofer, a tiny tweeter, and four weird looking satellite speakers.

I’m not sure where the idea came from, but yesterday, I decided to see what would happen if I hooked the speaker system up to my television.

I dusted it off, untangled all the wires and set it up.  I plugged it in.  Nothing happened.  The television sounded exactly like it did before.  And then I remembered a tiny volume control on one of the satellite speakers.  I turned it up, and damn near blew my eardrums in.  I adjusted the volume.

As experiments go, I think I can mark that one down as an unqualified success.  The sound is quite remarkable, and I spent last night listening to Classic FM off the satellite.

One of the great things about the new sound system is that when I mute advertisements, I can listen to the resulting silence in full glorious surround-sound, which as everybody knows, is far preferable to stereo silence.

I am looking forward to the evening news tomorrow.  I shall be wrapped up in the all enveloping silky tones of my Sharon in glorious, full spectrum quadraphonic sound.

It should even make the news tolerable for a change.