A snap taken by the Princess of Wales has sparked a transatlantic culture war after it showed her youngest children Charlotte and Louis at home, watching England’s soccer team play in the Euros final.
It seems their less than King sized television – 40 inches give or take – has been deemed pitiful by square-eyed Americans. Some even blamed its less than majestic presence for the youngsters having to sit so close to the screen.
So what size should your TV be? Well apparently it’s all a matter of class.
The Royals might not be averse to a bit of bling – have you seen the Crown Jewels – but nothing, according to the quirky nuances of British etiquette, says naff like a giant home TV.
In the world of one up man-ship, having screens in every room might help you keep up with the Joneses, but it’s all very ‘nouveau’ for the snobbier among British society, who value books and conversation above watching the latest episode of Yellowstone.
When the BBC began broadcasting in the 1930s, television was a London and middle-class phenomenon. The evening schedules didn’t start until 9pm, to accommodate the late-dining metropolitan bourgeoisie.
They’d finish eating 15 minutes beforehand, gather in the sitting room, wait for the valves of the set to warm up with the same air of expectancy you might feel in the theatre.
It wasn’t until the mid 1950s that TV snobbery began to suffuse British culture. Observers claimed that the ever growing popularity of the goggle box would induce apathy and cultural literacy in the working classes.
While colour TVs either signified middle-class asceticism or the spendthrift habit of the underclass. As a child, when we only had two channels, my husband was only allowed to watch the BBC, his parents considered ITV, the commercial channel, far too downmarket.
And, it seems some of those same class prejudices we held, are now attached to big screen TVs.
They have crossed over from being a luxury item into a symbol of ordinary affluence but they are still costly enough to inspire judgements about the feckless financial choices of others, especially in an age of austerity.
Etiquette expert William Hanson claims big televisions and cinema rooms are something you should never own.
‘Television is a downmarket medium. It is not the high church of culture. So having something so ginormous in order to watch something that’s already pretty downmarket, is even more downmarket than the medium itself,’ he says.
So what is the perfect size for your flatscreen? Online guides suggest that for a full HD TV, your viewing distance should be 6-7ft for a 40 inch set while you need to be 10-12 ft away from the screen if it’s 65 inches.
And don’t worry, in case you were, contrary to popular belief, sitting too close to the TV is not bad for your eyes, because modern LCD and plasma screens don’t emit radiation. However it can cause temporary eye strain or fatigue, so health experts recommend sitting at least 10ft away.
Whether you hang it on the wall or put it on a tabletop, try to position it at eye level to avoid straining your eye muscles or your neck as constantly looking up will cause these muscles to tire.
So now you know. The flatscreen TV is snobbery’s final frontier.
