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For me, Sunday night is telly night. Last night was going to be a good one, with on Sky Arts. Chekhov is a master of brevity whose short stories and plays are, in my opinion, some of the best ever written.

Anton Chekhov, 1898

The team at Sky Arts is doing a good job too, surviving - thriving even - on the financial crumbs it has been allowed to scavenge under the boardroom table of .

Poverty has been the mother of Sky Arts invention. And it has been innovative: bold sponsorships, imaginative commissions and the addition of a second channel, Sky Arts 2 HD.

But the truth is that I never watch it. This is not because I don't have Sky - I do - it's just that the thing I want to see is never on at the time I want to watch telly and the kids have always maxed out the Sky+.

It's an omission about which I have been feeling slightly guilty, professionally and personally. So it was with a double dose of enthusiasm that I puffed up the cushions and settled down for a spot of Mackenzie Crook and Johnny Vegas doing Chekhov.

Except I couldn't get the channel to work and had to call a grumpy expert. He huffed and puffed and complained a bit too; after about 90 of his apparently very precious seconds he told me, "Dad, you've got to pay extra for Sky Arts."

What? No, no, there must be some mistake. I already pay plenty to Sky each month: that must cover the arts programmes. I mean, it must. In the great scheme of Sky's finances, it amounts to a runner's petty cash: why deny access to any subscriber? I like the arts - a lot - but I'm not going to shell out yet more to watch re-runs of old docs and the occasional new commission.

It seems a disservice to the team behind the channel, to the arts in general and to Sky subscribers not to bundle Sky Arts into all the packages on offer. I flicked over to ´óÏó´«Ã½ One. I found lots of men in wigs who all looked the same, except for the one who looked like Rumpole of the Bailey. Garrow's Law might be lavishly produced, but The Wire it is not. I reached for the off switch and a book.

Ernest Hemingway, 1944

The first that came to hand was , his recently-published collection of short stories. It's very good. Like Chekhov, Toibin takes you to another place in a few simple sentences. .

Ernest Hemingway was a master of the short story. Even his memoir, A Moveable Feast, is a lesson in precision, reduction and clarity. He creates atmosphere by taking words out, not putting them in. Long before the he or she realises it, Hemingway knows that the reader is ensnared. His control and his rhythm are breathtaking.

It is said that he bet a friend he could write a story in six words and then presented this: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

I suspect he would have liked and loathed the digital world and its publishing platforms such as Twitter. He might have been amused by , which describes itself as short stories under 1,000 words. Compared to the approach of (surely a homage to Hemingway), that's flagrant windbaggery.

Short stories appear to be regaining popularity. The shortlist for will be read on Radio 4 at 1500 GMT all this week, starting with Tea at the Midland by David Constantine.

The short story is all about the concept of "less is more". This can work a treat in fiction; in real life, it tends to lead to disappointment and frustration - as I find out last night when I tried to watch Sky Arts.