Television spectacles

Professor Kompressor enjoyed his television. After a long day of hard thinking and inventing he found it relaxing to sit in his comfortable chair and watch whatever happened to be on. The noise from the television brought life to the living room, which made the Professor feel less lonely. The repetitiveness of the frequent commercials had a hypnotic quality, which made the Professor sleepy. As a result, he often dozed off, lost the plot and ended up having to go to bed.

In reality the Professor liked the idea of the television more than the actual thing. He had often thought that someone ought to improve on the concept. Being an inventive person, he had even had a go at this himself, but the result had been less than perfect.

“Ideally,” thought the Professor, “you’d want to be able to watch your favourite programme wherever you are. Whenever it suits you.”

“A portable television would be the perfect solution,” he decided.

“The problem is that it would be too bulky,” he considered after giving his own television set a hard stare.

“One would need to make the design a lot more economical. Perhaps by making the screen smaller?”

“You could always get the same effect by watching it from close up.”

“I guess there’s a limit, though... If you get it too close to your face you might scratch your glasses.”

“The glasses!” he exclaimed. “That’s absolutely brilliant! Why not make the glasses themselves into the television?”

He decided that this was, indeed, a fine idea so started working on it immediately. It turned out to be very tricky to fit all the required electronics into a lightweight frame similar to that of his glasses. It was a real mini-challenge and the Professor had to work away under a microscope for quite some time before he was successful.

“These must be the most spectacular spectacles ever,” smiled the Professor as he was getting ready to test his invention.

He switched on the tiny television by tapping his right nostril once. A scene came to life in front of his eyes, blocking out the view of the inventing studio. The sound came clearly through tiny speakers he had installed in the frames. The effect was sensational. It felt incredibly real.

He changed the channel by tapping his left nostril. Deafening music blasted through the speakers. After a moment of panic, the Professor turned the volume down by pulling on his left earlobe.

After a bit of tapping and pulling he settled on an interesting documentary about African wildlife.

The Professor decided that a nice cup of tea, three lumps of sugar and a splash of milk, would make him enjoy the experience even more.

Caught up in the action on the screen, he walked off towards the kitchen... and crashed into the doorframe.

“Ouch,” he groaned as he checked if his nose was still there, “maybe the normal television is better after all?”