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Projections

Published 1st December 2011

Videogames

Ah, nothing I like better than picking tiny holes in articles I otherwise agree with:

Zelda: Skyward Sword – The Great Graphics Debate

“If a piece of art was once brilliant and stirring – if it truly was such – no technical advancement or passing of time can take that from it.”

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES

“The old, classic, black and white movies (like Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane or Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2) are no less captivating and memorable now that HD cameras are the standard.”

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

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Gratuitous

Published 13th November 2011

Videogames

From the June 1987 edition of A&B Computing:

Scan of Dunjunz advert

And here was me thinking it was just ports which used such tactics, and homegrown BBC Micro games were a paragon of virtue…

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CELEBRATING 75 GLORIOUS YEARS

Published 2nd November 2011

TV Gameshows / TV Presentation

So, you want a more inappropriately placed end voiceover than the one on GOLD the other day? How about this one, taken from tonight on Challenge+1?

Well done Challenge. You have LITERALLY managed to disrespect the dead.

It’s fairly simple. If you’re using pre-recorded voiceovers, make sure you preview everything to check your timings are right. If you can’t be arsed to do that, at least place them 15 seconds or so before the end, so you’re unlikely to crash the programme.

Don’t make it look like you don’t give a stuff about the channel, or the viewers. If you can keep the dead out of your incompetence as well, so much the better.

(EDIT: Listening again, only just noticed – the voiceover repeats halfway through! Ouch…)

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LBC choose Stanton

Published 30th October 2011

Radio

Taken from the January 1979 issue of Hi-Fi News & Record Review – click for a bigger version:

LBC choose Stanton - advert

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A camera in shot on Coronation Street

Published 27th October 2011

TV Drama

A thrilling post title, no? And I deliver on my promises. Taken from an episode shown early this year, on January 3rd:

A camera in Coronation Street

Amazing.

UPDATE (02/01/15): Clearly EastEnders has decided it doesn’t want to miss out on all the fun. Broadcast on New Year’s Day 2015, as seen by Jonathan Bufton – slightly less visible, but still there on the left:

A camera in EastEnders

This is clearly the best post ever on this site.

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Three posts about UKTV being crap in a row, there

Published 26th October 2011

Internet

I really don’t want to turn this into a BITCH-O-BLOG. But sometimes it’s tricky, when UKTV are present in the same universe as you.

Have a look this post on Ganymede & Titan – a Red Dwarf fansite I co-run. (One of our more positive reviews: “A website run by a group of friends that don’t just make ‘fan’ a dirty word, they soil it like a pair of decade old underpants.”) To cut a short story shorter, UKTV have been pointing people towards our site thinking we’re Grant Naylor Productions – something that is “fairly obvious” we are not.

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How GOLD ruins programmes, Part #367234

Published 22nd October 2011

TV Comedy / TV Presentation

Whilst we’re on the subject of GOLD transmission errors, the below – broadcast yesterday – brings me out in FISTS OF RAGE. The dinnerladies episode Minnellium – and just as we get to the discovery that Anita was the one who abandoned her baby:

One of the most heart-wrenching endings they ever had to an episode: ruined. The last joke in the episode: ruined. One episode of dinnerladies: ruined. All because they triggered their pre-recorded voiceover in the usual place, rather than actually checking the end of the episode to see if it fitted.

Brilliant, GOLD, well done.

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Stick Something INCORRECT On

Published 20th October 2011

TV Presentation

Oh dear, GOLD’s going through an identity crisis. Broadcast at around 7:40pm on the 19th October:

For anyone wondering how that happened, I’m fairly certain that’s a dynamically created trail – not a pre-created piece of video, but automatically generated by the playout server. Clearly, the right schedule information, audio, and video clips were present – but the wrong channel graphics were selected…

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So, take a seat. Welcome. And enjoy.

Published 13th July 2011

TV Comedy

OK, so you thought the Brittas Empire ticket and programme leaflet were obscure? Back in 1993, my girlfriend attended a recording of BBC sitcom Every Silver Lining. On a British Legion trip. A rude comment about the blue rinse brigade would be demeaning but accurate.

Luckily, being the type of person she is, she kept the programme leaflet given out at the recording, a scan of which follows below. Click to enlarge. Anyone care to guess how many of these still exist?

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