Inches

This is not some overrated piece of modern art, simply an attempt to mock up different sizes of TV screen to see how they might fit in. The existing one (temporarily parked on the floor) has taken to grumbling and wheezing on being asked to start up. It's served me well for eight years, and plugging in a replacement digital recorder/tuner that can take high-definition channels and internet services has given it a new lease of life - when it at last settles down after a few minutes. Realistically, though, it may give up altogether sometime soon.

Looking for the next advance in technologies reveals that simply to replace what I have now and to add some on-demand internet services means upgrading from the old 26" to a 32" screen; but for the full high-def, scroll-back/catch-up set-up, there's nothing less than a 40" (and even then it may not have the connectors for all the old technologies I'd want to plug in). Do I really want a window on the world (especially with the world as it is) to dominate my living room to that extent? Would it help to mount it on the wall (if I trusted the wall to hold it), or would there be room room if the clutter around it were tidied up and rearranged? Talk about a First World problem.

Somewhere in the back of my mind there's the sound of Miss Jean Brodie on the opening of a more literal window - "Six inches is perfectly adequate. More is vulgar."