Blimey, is it December already? Seems so, which means another 24 days of archival oddities, you lucky people. We start with a strange and lovely thing that was looped 24 hours a day on Sky channel 999 a few years back. No word of a lie, I recorded two hours of this and have kept it on DVD. Occasionally in moments when I feel like my head is about to explode, the disc comes out and order is restored. It's a soothing yet slightly melancholy thing, thanks, I think, to the music. A talking terrier and a similarly vocal duck seated in a toy fire engine would be something rather special any day of the week, but the music elevates it somehow. I can say with confidence that it's the best thing Sky has ever made or transmitted. Less so the interactive menus featuring the dog and duck, which can be seen after the initial couple of minutes.
I remember those two, but I've only just realised that they've given a bitch a male voice...
ReplyDeleteI really wish I'd recorded more ephemera from the early days of Sky Digital. From M2 (later MTV2) when it didn't have to worry about selling advertising space and would happily just bung on a load of French hip-hop in primetime, to the slightly demented regional variations of BBC Choice, right down to a prime EPG slot being taken up purely by the words "To watch ITV, press the 'tv' button on your Sky Digital remote followed by '3'." Oh, and "Coming soon: an interactive service from British Interactive Broadcasting", which seemed like it was going to be the most exciting then ever, but then wasn't.
ReplyDeleteAll that, PLUS I was still young and pretty. Damn you, Father Time.