Where's the bloody remote!!!

We often play with the idea of getting rid of the T.V particularly after visiting my relatives in France, who don't have T.Vs. We arrive home full of good intentions about limiting the amount of T.V we watch, but we quickly find ourselves returning to the old routine.
Well ,today we had a taste of what it would be like if we were to take the plunge. This morning the eldest child lost the T.V remote, after switching to childrens T.V (so at least we had the option of them watching during the day when they get to much)
The day was just awful, truly horrible, it turns out that it is us adults that rely on the T.V, to distract the kids while we are doing those neccessary weekend jobs like Sunday lunch, but also to distract ourselves when they have been to much and we are trying to recover in their quiet moments. We have freeview and normally when the little one naps, the big one has to amuse himself in his room for a short time, we drink tea and watch a Friends or Scrubs re-run. Without it we talk - about work. I feel like I can not relax. We have resorted to a film tonight, I can not cope with the idea of a whole evening without the television, I need the anaesthetic escape, especially today, I do not want to read or play chess or talk, I need to be entirely insular, vegetative, quiet, passive.
Today was a bad day for it to go, yesterday we spent in Ikea (yes the entire day) spent £300 on flooring and finishing touches for the house, and today, to keep on schedule, we had to work on the house. We are finishing the bathroom at the moment, my job was plastering the gash in the ceiling where the wall that separated the W.C was. His job was wiring in the new lights.
Added to this I have a deadline, which has already been extended twice, for the latest chapter of my thesis and the code which was running to make the plots...crashed, of course.
Add to this two almost hyperactive children and thanksgiving preparations and you have the worst possible day.
How I wish I could put this into perspective, but I can not, it is frightening to realise that I am totally dependent on the T.V