IHAVE noticed over the last few months or so your regular feature called 'On The Couch,' which basically is about what people from five years old to ninety like to watch on TV and what they like to eat while watching TV, etc. It all seems very jolly and cosy and exceedingly normal.

However: Is it a good thing to celebrate and indeed encourage people to increase their consumption of television? Television as a medium is passive in the extreme and has rapidly deteriorated in quality over the last few years -- the phenomenon known as 'dumbing down.'

Is it responsible to promote a lifestyle of reaching for the remote control every evening? Is this all everyone does? Since when has being a couch potato something to promote in a local newspaper? Are you saying all family life and interaction revolves around the television set -- even eating?

If it's your lifestyle choice to sit yourself in front of the zombie box each evening, then go right ahead.

What I would like to see is perhaps a feature on people who spend time engaged in active pastimes which are creative, unusual, inspiring, campaigning, effective, uplifting, challenging, spirited and life enhancing.

This would maybe encourage others to get off the settee and to fill their hearts and minds with something more fulfilling than a soap opera. There will be countless people with fascinating lives and interests who could serve as inspiration to us all and show there is life beyond the passive viewing of a TV screen.

IAN HODGSON, Eldon Road, Blackburn.

Footnote: On The Couch is simply an item of light relief for our readers, to give the paper a 'change of pace' and a bit more fun! Whether it 'encourages' people to watch more TV is questionable. What it does do is recognise an indisputable fact: namely, that watching TV is probably the major pastime throughout the world.

As for features on more pro-active pastimes, the Lancashire Evening Telegraph now carries more material of this type than ever before, with far more space devoted to hobbies such as gardening, wine appreciation, walking and days out. On top of this, almost every night we carry stories highlighting the achievements of East Lancashire people who have indeed got off the couch to make marvellous contributions within their local community -- Editor.