Sunday, October 08, 2006

 
GF2 600 - 09b Acne door [adjusted]Not much to report, except Radio 4's Diplomatic Dinners is worth listening to (and it's quite short). It goes out on Tuesday morning, so listen to the first episode before then (if you can; I'm not sure if the radio section of the BBC has the same UK-only restrictions as the television branch).

In other BBC news, Lead Balloon (on website) has one killer line about fruitcakes, oh, and I'm glad I was cooking when Robin Hood was on because that meant I only saw bits of it, which saved me from having carpet embedded in my chin. There's Saturday night rubbish or something mindlessly occupying, and then there's just... this. I'd rather watch a repeat of documentary based on the Da Vinci Code than be exposed to that again.

I know it's aimed, to a certain extent, at children, but I struggle to think of any child I know who would watch it. Admittedly, under full disclosure I should admit I grew up with Maid Marian and her Merry Men, and remember watching Prince of Thieves fairly early on as well (I was at a residential sailing school, it was snowing and blowing things over, so we were inside practicing knots when the instructors realised they were running out of knots; I can still tie a noose, having seen one in the film and therefore asked) and can cope with the myriad insanities of the Costner thing, as I could at least ignore the ridiculousness of it purely because it was American and therefore it mattered not that they land at Dover and expect to arrive by nightfall in Nottinghamshire despite going via Hadrian's Wall.

So if you've grown up with Maid Marian, watching something in which the first female appears solely to stand around waiting to be kissed, while the hero battles with her father - a man old enough to be her husband - does seem a little insulting.

Of course the television got even better after that, with Celebrity Come Dancing, which isn't as gelatinous as it sounds, and which I abandoned unable to withstand Forsyth's gurning (what do you mean he wasn't?). It did feature the not terribly distinctive DJ Spooney, thus providing a link to the previous programme through my brother's comment upon hearing that voice emerge from his car radio...er, I've already done this haven't I? Hey, recycling's good for the environment [this statement may not be entirely accurate].

It's hardly surprising I adjourned to Flickr (with a break for Bremner, Bird and Fortune) where I added a few more things; see what you recognise.

Now if you'll excuse me I'll get back to singing along to the Avenue Q soundtrack (do not go, it won't leave you for weeks, and if you get a copy of the soundtrack you'll soon discover that the way to stop to hearing songs endlessly in your head is not, unlike the common misconception, to listen to them; that only means you know more of the words).

#Making the world a better place...#

Er, did I just use hash signs to indicate music? How Ceefax* is that?

* For non-UKers, and Az as he'll claim to be far too young to remember (even though it still works and is quicker than the digital equivalent), Ceefax is a system for encoding text and graphical content in analogue television signals. It comes with a whole eight colours and pixels the size of small mammals. If you can remember BBC computers, well, text and graphics like that, only on BBC television.

And I of course lied when I said I'd go back to singing along to Avenue Q [écoutez ici and here]. It's not really multitaskable. My hands flap around as madly as my voice (which, probably due to not singing since that cold in '95 (or was it '94? Either way, late developer), currently is somewhere between Rod and Trekkie Monster).

Anyhoo,

I remember Ceefax!
That was the BBC one wasn't it? ITV had a different thing, is it teletext?
 
Up until 1.1.93, the BBC's teletext service was called Ceefax and ITV/C4's teletext service was called Oracle ("If you want to [whatever], page your oracle"). Then from 1993 ITV/C4's teletext service was operated by Teletext Ltd. No wonder everyone's confused.

And I'm showing my age too, huh, Any?

[/geek]
 
See, I'm so post-93 ;-P

Oh yeah, what's my prize for the guessing the picture competition?
 
Heh. I remember Ceefax. Those pixels were larger than most Eastern European countries.
 
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