Television

For many years, Mark famously avoided television, and indeed for long periods did not own one. He had seen only one episode of The Simpsons (which he was asked to watch for an appearance on Newsnight Review), while he had never seen Friends because "I have friends in real life, so why would I want to watch other people's?"

This left him somewhat adrift when TV references appeared during Wittertainment, often simply saying "nope, it's television." His opinion of it as a lesser medium was also indicated by his views on everything from The Queen ("why isn't it on television?") to Jennifer Aniston's face ("why isn't it on television?").

Harry Shearer (who happens to be one of the voices on the aforementioned Simpsons) challenged him on this, asking if this meant that Boat Trip was better than The West Wing. Mark conceded that at this point he understood his attitude towards television no longer had any legs.

Mark did watch Life On Mars though, on the grounds that "I'm a 44-year-old man who owns a Capri, what else am I going to do?"