Tuesday, December 22, 2009

With barely a couple of minutes of day 22 left, it's time to open another window. Through this aperture we are whisked back to the late 1980s and Top of the Pops, but not as we know it. Using a library piece that sounds enough like Paul Hardcastle's 'The Wizard' to get the point across, while at the same time sounding absolutely nothing like it at all, this is the opening of the British Gas Video Unit's attempt to create a pop chart of great inventors, aided by David '(Who are you trying to) Kid' Jensen. The true glory comes when a rather more sober voiceover chap takes over talks of the lasting influence of inventors compared to the "here today, gone tomorrow" impact of pop stars. Up pops a Quantel extravaganza of pop star mugshots. Who, he asks, 20 years on (which is just about now, as it happens) will remember these faces? Yeah, what did happen to Kylie Minogue, Bono and the Pet Shop Boys? If anyone wants to see the rest of this 12-minute edition of Engineering's Not Dull, just say.

1 comment:

Robin Carmody said...

I'd like to see the rest. What I've seen so far is classic.