Father Ted was an excellent comedy shown on Channel 4 from ‘95 to ‘98 before the death of it’s star, Dermot Morgan. It follows the lives of three priests who for various reasons have been banished to Craggy Island. “My Lovely Horse” is a song the main duo came up with in order to win a bet in an episode called “A Song For Europe”.
OK I tell a small white lie here – Channel 4 won’t allow anyone to embed the actual Father Ted video, so instead here’s a rather wonderful tribute video. Click the links below the video for the proper one.
Click here for the real video courtesy of Channel 4 and YouTube and inspired by the video for “That’s What Friends Are For” by The Swarbriggs.
My Lovely Horse Lyrics:
Here are the lyrics for My Lovely Horse – the song isn’t very long because it’s a dream sequence, but it great nonetheless.
My lovely lovely lovely horse.
My lovely horse (my lovely horse),
Running through the field (running through the field).
Where are you going,
With your fetlocks blowing
In the wind?
I want to shower you with sugarlumps.
And ride you over fences.
Polish your hooves every single day.
And bring you to the horse dentist.
My lovely lovely lovely horse.
My lovely horse (my lovely horse),
You’re a pony no more (you’re a pony no more).
Running around, with a man on your back,
like a train in the night…
Back in January of 2007 I plonked down around £1200 on a 42″ Sharp Aquos LCD, having succeeded in convincing my local Curry’s to price match with an online store and saving something like £200-£300 into the bargain. We let them deliver it and for a while all was good, but over the last month or so I’ve become increasingly aware of a faint dark smudge across the top of the screen. It was very noticable in dark programme scenes and on the greyed out XBox screens, but even more so when showing a large expanse of blue sky – making even the sunniest days look smog-filled.
Thankfully I had opted for a service agreement/insurance plan (call it what you will) called ‘whateverhappens’, which Curry’s were offering for £8.99 a month at the time. Normally I don’t touch extended warranties with a barge pole, but the PAYG option genuinely seemed a better deal than spending £300 all in one go. They explained that – as indicated by the name – I would be covered for whatever happened to the TV as long as I was paying the insurance.
So, Monday rolled around and I called the 0870 number on my paperwork. I got through to a real-life human after patiently wading through around 8 levels of menu options and explained what I thought was wrong. An engineer was booked for the very next day, and I was told he’d call to confirm an ETA. Sure enough, I stumbled blurry-eyed into the kitchen the next morning to find a message left on my mobile – the engineer had called at 7:30am and said he’d be arriving between 09:00 and 13:00. While not as bad as Argos and their ‘anywhere between 9am and 5pm’ estimates, it was still pretty vague.
He arrived at 10:45, took one look at the picture and promptly diagnosed a faulty panel. I was quite relieved at this since the internet is full of stories of companies trying to get out of their promises. The engineer then went on to point out other areas of the screen that were discoloured as well which, in all honesty, I hadn’t really noticed, took a few details, filled in some paperwork and made a phone call to have the set collected. The next day, two gents turn up, more paperwork is exchanged and my lovely big TV is manhandled out the door to a waiting lorry. Since the insurance specifies ‘New or Better’ in the event it cannot be repaired, and since Curry’s no longer sell the 42″ Aquos but do sell the 46″ one, I offered to trip them up on the way out so that the set would definately not be repairable. They politely declined.
Around Tuesday I called another 0870 number (Grrr..) to ask what sort of timescale I should expect, and was informed that I should have a call, letter or whatever around the end of the week. When I called on Friday, it was confirmed that my TV was ‘beyond econimcal repair’ and I would be receiving a voucher in the post. I called again on Monday after nothing had arrived over the weekend an I was told it would be 5-7 days from the date of issue – the 29th.
This is the biggest holdup in the process and the only part of the entire service which lets it down. If your TV cannot be repaired economically then they’ll post you a reference number, leaving you at the mercy of the post office, all the time without your TV. This is Space Year 2009! Why can’t they just call my local store with the details and tell me when to go and present my Photo ID? They could email, SMS or even Tweet this bloody reference number – all options which would get things resolved much more quickly.
By Tuesday the voucher had arrived but the value on it was not enough to buy a set of the same specification. The staff at Curry’s were very helpful in that they called whateverhappens and got them to issue a second, additional voucher to bring the total up to something more useful. The whole process essentially went without a hitch, and the longest aprt – aside from the waiting – was deciding which of the multitute of TVs was the best for me. In the end I paid some extra and carted away a 50in plasma and a BluRay player.
Some things I’ve learned:
Currys are dropping the Sharp range. No idea why, but the Sharp models are priced at £xxx.97, indicating they are discontinued.
They are currently not giving discounts, presumably because of the current financial climate.
They will only price match a local store that has your item in stock. Gone are the days of matching an Internet price.
If you ask nicely, they will call whateverhappens and try to increase the cost of your voucher. It’s in their interest to sell pricier items.
‘Same spec’ is useless – just because an Vauxhall has four wheels, five seats and a steering wheel, it’s not a BMW.
Streaming TV in the UK is a royal pain in the backside at the moment, because all the big TV companies have their own standard and their own site. With the BBC iPlayer, ITV’s Catchup, Channel 4 On Demand and now the Sky bringing the Sky Player into the arena, Joe Internet User needs to browse at least four websites to see what you’ve missed.
What we need is a centralised, platform-independent streaming catchup TV website where the big companies can include their own channels into a compiled TV Guide covering the last week (or however long the programmes are available for). Imagine going to a website and being able to view all the stuff from the past week from all the available channels in one place – no flicking between tabs on your browser and waiting for more pages to load.
Users would be far more inclined to flick between channels rather than sitting around on the same TV website, but since it’s a catchup service and not a live service, this shouldn’t affect the actual channels. Merging the feeds and using standardised Flash player interface (I hate Flash as much as the next developer, but it works, and works well) would remove confusion between formats, and life would just be so much easier.
Companies can serve the streams from their own servers to alleviate clogging of the tubes, and of course they can continue to show their own stuff on their respective websites, but a common unified interface would be a complete and utter winner.
Of course, none of the companies will take the initiative, so it will end up being a hack by some talented teenager along the lines of the PS3 iPlayer website. I might even have a go myself if nothing happens for a while (and I’d blog it) and I find myself without projects. I can’t be the only person to have thought of this though.
Updated 4th July ‘08
K pointed out this news article from the BBC’s site – it appears the formerly-terrestrial channels 1-4 want to band together against Sky to do exactly what I’ve outlined above. I truly believe this is a step in the right direction, and as long as it remains platform-independent and easy to use, it’ll be brilliant.
Recently I had the misfortune to view the latest pathetic steaming pile of crap to grace our TV screens in the form of a new ad for the Post Office – ”The People’s Post Office” no less, in which a bunch of rejects from The Office normal, everyday people sit about saying how great the Post Office is and how much they do for us.
Is this the same Post Office that intends to close up to three thousand rural branches because they don’t make enough money? You know… the ones used by actual people?
Is this the same Post Office that recently went on strike again, bring the delivery of important mail almost to a standstill? You know… mail intended for actual people?
Hah, it’s on YouTube already:
Whoever commissioned, produced and released this ad either has the biggest balls this side of Godzilla, or is so full of shit they could fertilise next year’s Chelsea Flower Show with a single bowel movement. Seriously – how exactly have the Post Office done anything for people just recently?
Oh, but at least it has Joan Collins.
HAH: Seems I’m not the only one to think the timing is great.
Lazy Town is a mad little children’s programme featuring Sportacus, Stephanie and their arch-nemesis, Robbie Rotten. It can be found on CBeebies in the UK. Sportacus and Stephanie get the inhabitants of Lazy Town dancing and excersicing, while Robbie Rotten just want to take things easy and, well, be lazy. The general presentation is lots of colour, lots of excercise and lots of funky tunes, one of which is ‘You Are a Pirate’:
Lazy Town “You are a Pirate” – MP3 Ringtones
A couple of LazyTown “You are a Pirate” looping MP3 ringtones here:
I must have woken from a 6-month coma or something recently, because almost every ad break or programme bumper I see features the leathery-skinned, patchy-haired, psuedo-emo-goth dressed horror that is David Gest, a man so facially bizarre that he could be his own Spitting Image puppet.
Who the hell is he and why is he plastered all over my TV screen? The only thing I knew about him was that he was once married to Liza Minelli, and I’m sure I only knew about that because of the messiness of the divorce. Suddenly I’m seeing pictures of him walking down the street and perfect strangers complimenting him on keeping his weight down – what the hell? He’s on TV so much I’m worried about burn-in!
Obviously I’m watching all the wrong channels. According to Gest’s entry on Wikipedia (which would barely cover his bald spot, if printed in 24-point Impact) he was in I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here 2006, which explains.. well nothing really. He’s an American TV Producer – do those count as celebrities now?
4oD is the latest initiative from the UK’s Channel 4, and features Video on Demand from the organisations film and TV listings. Almost anything from Channel 4 and FilmFour is available to download and play on either a free ‘catch up’ or a rental basis.
Not having a Windows XP machine, it took the arrival of the new laptop to allow me to sample the delights of 4oD. The service interface is an XP-only download (though XP Tablet Edition works just as well, as should MCE) and appears to make heavy use of Flash and WMP DRM. The interface is clean and uncluttered, and resembled the 4oD/Channel Four websites.
Both TV Shows and Movies are divided into your usual categories of Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi, Documentary and so on. TV can be downloaded on a ‘Catch Up’ basis to allow you to watch things you’ve missed in the past week, or on a ‘Book It’ basis so you can set your machine to download a show once it becomes available. There’s a mix of Free and Pay offerings that pretty much covers the whole of Channel 4’s output.
Movies are Pay Only items with prices around £1.99. Presumably if the service takes off, newer films (EG, new FIlmFour releases) may be made available at a higher cost. Currently the most recent films available are from 2002 (Thunderpants, Miranda and Talk to Her) but hopefully this will be improved. There are a few classics, so it’s a decent start.
The actual 4oD software runs in your system tray at all times and will download your selections in the background, or you can watch them streaming if you prefer. Speeds are good – certainly it appeared to be able to max out my 10Mb connection with a 176MB (24mins) download of ‘Derren Brown: Trick or Treat‘ completing in just a few minutes. The estimimated download time was 48 minutes, but the actual time was nearer 5-10. Obviously, network conditions and your broadband speed will affect this. Most programmes are 24 or 48 minutes long – indicating they’re free of ads.
Video quality isn’t bad on the TV shows we’ve tried. The stream appears to be 320×240 but the software does a good job of scaling it up to whatever resolution you happen to be using. On the 1024×600 notebook, things were perfectly watchable. The play allows double-size and full screen modes, and the application’s control panel is very professionally rendered.
Maybe it was just us, but we were unable to simply drag the slider to a random position on the video progress bar and watch the stream from there. Rewind and Fast Forward seem to work as indicated, however. Once you’ve started watching a download you have 48 hours to finish watching, then it’s automatically deleted from your list.
On the whole, the service works very well. It’s intuitive and speedy, and the bare minimum usage – that of being able to download free stuff from earlier in the week – makes the service very useful indeed. It would be nice to have all UK channels served up in this way – perhaps the BBC et al should take note?
Back in January of 2007 I plonked down around £1200 on a 42″ Sharp Aquos LCD, having succeeded in convincing my local Curry’s to price match with an online store and saving something like £200-£300 into the bargain. We let them deliver it and for a while all was good, but over the last month or so I’ve become increasingly aware of a faint dark smudge across the top of the screen. It was very noticable in dark programme scenes and on the greyed out XBox screens, but even more so when showing a large expanse of blue sky – making even the sunniest days look smog-filled.
Streaming TV in the UK is a royal pain in the backside at the moment, because all the big TV companies have their own standard and their own site. With the BBC iPlayer, ITV’s Catchup, Channel 4 On Demand and now the Sky bringing the Sky Player into the arena, Joe Internet User needs to browse at least four websites to see what you’ve missed.
