From the June 1987 edition of A&B Computing:
And here was me thinking it was just ports which used such tactics, and homegrown BBC Micro games were a paragon of virtue…
Gratuitous
Published 13th November 2011
CELEBRATING 75 GLORIOUS YEARS
Published 2nd November 2011
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…)
LBC choose Stanton
Published 30th October 2011
Taken from the January 1979 issue of Hi-Fi News & Record Review – click for a bigger version:
A camera in shot on Coronation Street
Published 27th October 2011
A thrilling post title, no? And I deliver on my promises. Taken from an episode shown early this year, on January 3rd:
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:
This is clearly the best post ever on this site.
Three posts about UKTV being crap in a row, there
Published 26th October 2011
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.
How GOLD ruins programmes, Part #367234
Published 22nd October 2011
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.
Stick Something INCORRECT On
Published 20th October 2011
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…
So, take a seat. Welcome. And enjoy.
Published 13th July 2011
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?
Erm… Just Scan It, Colin?
Published 6th July 2011
Piss poor. But move on.
I presume it’s not just me who has a list of sitcoms they wish they’d been at recordings of. From Fawlty Towers to Blackadder to Men Behaving Badly, for me the list extends even to specific episodes of a series. The fact I will never see the Red Dwarf episode Back To Reality recorded pains me immensely.
Another sitcom on the list is the vastly underrated The Brittas Empire. A few years back, however, someone eBayed their audience ticket and leaflet given out at the show – and I now present this material which I have refused to allow to become ephemera. Click for bigger versions:
I’ve Never Read… A Book
Published 18th May 2011
When I think back to 2003, two things stick in my mind. Firstly, that was the year when I dropped out of uni a complete and total failure. Secondly, it was when I got involved with a Red Dwarf fansite run by a certain Ian Symes – Ganymede & Titan.
A lot’s happened in the intervening years – whether it’s arguing with Iain Lee, nearly getting sued by Grant Naylor Productions, or… well, arguing with Norman Lovett. Yet oddly, for me, one of the most exciting things we’ve done is a repackaging of old stuff. Because last month, we put a book out.