We don’t have pay TV – Mr Shambles is a conscientious objector to paying for television – “they want me to pay for this drivel?”

However, he did upgrade our 13-year-old television to a digital model. So now we can’t get the ABC at all and during rainy weather (and let me tell you it rains a lot here on the coast) we endure the stop/start/pixelation of a number of other channels as well. Probably shouldn’t have let Mr Shambles install the antennae on the roof himself. This means we often find ourselves squashed onto the two-seater lounge (yes if you angle yourself correctly a family of four can fit on a two-seater lounge) in the second sitting room watching the 13-year-old television which goes like a charm and lets us see ALL the channels.

But what the new television did was introduce us to the digital channels the free-to-air stations have installed. It seems the main purpose of these channels is play re-runs in a never-ending loop. I now have flashbacks to my childhood and youth as Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Brady Bunch, The Flintstones, Seinfeld, Charmed and Friends invade my living room every single day.

Worse, my children have discovered some of these shows as if they are airing for the first time. I’m now finding myself watching episodes of Friends where I can almost quote the lines alongside the characters.

“Mum, this is so funny”

“Yep I laughed hysterically in when it aired originally in 1992 and in repeats in 1995 and 2001  and 2003 … do you want me to tell you how it ends?”

“NOOO”.

Bewitched is as cheesy as ever but geeze Elizabeth Montgomery had some good outfits – and what I wouldn’t give for the power to wriggle my nose and make stuff happen.

Yesterday I bought The Muppet Movie for my niece’s birthday.

Have these children no pop culture of their own? How did my past go retro and into endless repeat?

I discover nothing much has changed in the 35 plus years since I started watching these shows, I still think Greg Brady is cute and when I grow up I want to be Jennifer Aniston.