Last night I was reading a paper, Paula was on the phone and Billy was playing with his gigantic super magnet, sticking it to the radiator and picking up coins.

Billy suddenly said “Look Dad, the magnet makes great patterns on the TV screen.”

Yes he was dragging his super-powerful magnet across the screen, taking the electrons with it. I stuttered a bit, and said that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. He had been watching a cartoon, and the picture looked sort of ok. I changed channel to be sure only to see Rolf Harris with a green head and purple hands. Yes he had magnetically charged the tv screen, and the colours were all over the place. I looked for a degauss setting on the menu, to no avail. I turned the TV on and off a few times but still no joy, and I was resigned to having to buy a new TV at the weekend. We turned the situation into a opportunity to give Billy a science lesson as to how TV’s work and why magnets and TVs don’t mix too well. We also covered video tape and anything else I could think of.

Later we turned our multi-coloured TV off to put the kids to bed, and we didn’t turn it on again for an hour our so. When we did put it back on, the picture was fine. I can only assume the TV degausses itself after a period. Phew!