it is so that there are things which were once and now shall be no more, look you see. many accepted facets (or aspects) of our life have irreconcilably altered, changed or gone. sometimes this is for the better, in a few instances we have subconsciously agreed to pretend it is for the better, in some cases it has been to our detriment.
where, exactly, the fall from our screens of the bbc test card resides on such a scale is a matter of personal opinion. there are, for instance, many who knew not that such a thing even existed, born as they were in a time when twenty four hour (party people) broadcasting was a given, meaning they never ever experienced a "shutdown" of a tv channel.
ostensibly the test card page was less about simply filling the void at times when the bbc simply could not be bothered to broadcast anything, more about assisting operators of television reception units. whereas now we simply plug in a tv and it works (or it does not), then it was far more complex. a television set was a highly sophisticated, military grade piece of equipment. one had to calibrate it quite like them radar things they used to check on commies sending missiles our way. you had to adjust the vertical hold, the horizontal hold, the colour balance or the monochrome settings on each use. for this, the test card was of benefit.
something that i briefly considered was adding a video of the test card here. many of you quite like it when there is a video (oooh, have we got a video), and it is an absolute pleasure to bring such to you, thank you for visiting and reading. but then it occurred to me that doing so was a rather silly (no doubt greta upsetting) waste of resources, for it would be a video file of a still image. or, indeed, would it be so?
there shall be no surprise in me saying that many (several) theories exist about the test card. some might well call these "conspiracy" theories, but i have no comfort in using this phrase, or term in association with the test card. rather, i feel, it is that a number of ambient theories exist in association with it.
having, over time, looked at various other (similar) theories, such as that of the thirteenth episode of Fawlty Towers and the secrets of Bullseye, i see no reason at all not to delve into this particular mystery. although the (apparent) absence of John Cleese, the Spanish and His Excellency Jim Bowen just might make this all less glamorous.
and so forth with such combinations and permutations. in quite an accidental and unforeseen consequence of the bbc using this particular image for the test signal, so it was that the young lady featured in it could claim to have the most minutes, hours or weeks on broadcast television of anyone, even more that Bruce "Brucie" Forsyth.
it may at times feel like a new phenomenon, what with instantwittergrambook follows and likes being so important, but let it be said that clutching at even the most tenuous link to fame and recognition has always been an aspect of human nature. well, at least here, yes, it is very much a part of the English way of doing things. with this in mind, then, someone somewhere did state one of the phrases above of the girl featured in the test signal, and they were correct. however, not everyone who did so was right, and was the case of every single school in the land having at least one person claim this as being the case.
more recently, with our (admittedly) increasingly celebrity focused thinking, claims have been made that the test card girl was actually Adele's mum or grandma. this is born from a passing physical resemblance, certainly, but more of our willingness and desire to underline how awesome we think Adele is, irrespective of whether her most recent album is or is not about being quite angry with a gent.
the reason these theories were able to flow was via the genius of selection. a model was chose who was imbued with a key, unique sense of "anonymous familiarity", which by no means is disparaging. she came to represent all children, and was immediately recognisable to all, and that is how come so many believed they knew her.
as to who the model in the test card really was, well, that to this day remains a closely guarded secret, known only to a chosen few in an elite circle of power, and indeed anyone who cares to do one of them google searches on the matter and find the answer.
perhaps this is one ambient theory about the bbc test card which would have benefited from some video. however, to prove or disprove it, well, it is so that one would reasonably be expected to go through hundreds of hours of footage to see if any alternate moves were really taken. if you believe that i have access to that much footage, or am interested in looking at hours of it, regrettably you are quite mistaken.
for clarification, yes, to our friends in america, and indeed nations where the names of things have been influenced by american culture, the game you see which has the proper name of noughts and crosses is indeed what you for some reason call 'tic tac toe'. i have no idea why you do so, but bless you all the same for the creativity.
it is entirely possible that there was an actual game of noughts and crosses being played across the broadcasts of the test card. as we shall see a little later, the test card did, after all, change from time to time, for debatable reasons. but, really, you have to ask who is it that would have had such power to command that their game of noughts and crosses was broadcast to the nation, in secret, and for what reason, exactly, would they do so? understanding such is beyond my level of comprehension.
quite a controversial aspect to the whole bbc test card thing, this is. i must tread with exceedingly cautious caution, then, for there are many unproven yet perfectly viable allegations against Sir Jimmy and his activities at the bbc. and beyond, with apparently any number of hospitals, rest homes and indeed morgues benefiting from his patronage.
not that i have done any great research into the matter, but all the same i am unaware of Sir Jimmy ever having a proclivity to make either effigies, dolls or similar in his own likeness. it is possible that he did so, but i have no knowledge of such. were i pressed on the subject, i could totes see him at some stage commissioning a big massive golden statue of himself (perhaps to be placed on bbc grounds, or at a suitable hospital, rest home or morgue), but that is about it, really. mostly it seems his ego impulses in this respect were sated if not satisfied by having those who pleased him or who he pleased wearing a "jim fixed it for me" medallion of pride or shame, depending on how your perspective is.
overall, i believe that this claim about the clown doll can be if not dismissed then prescribed as a case of pareidolia. that is the posh term for "seeing faces in things", like when people claim that they see the visage of the baby jesus, or virgin madonna, in wood, pieces of toast or clouds. you see the face there because someone has told you that such is what you are looking at.
this one goes back, in part, to the noughts and crosses (or if you insist tic tac toe) theory. giving some plausibility, and perhaps another angle, on that, we know that the test card was changed from time to time, and such change was signified by a different letter appearing below the picture of the child, the clown and the game. the questions prompted by such, then, is why was there a change? so far as i am aware the basics of the test card were not changed, only the letter below the circle and possibly the noughts and crosses board.
we have to be careful not to confuse yesterday with today. now, in 2020, there is of course an apparent drive by our government to dismantle the bbc, either out of revenge for their bias or because large swathes of the population have grown tired of their bias, depending on your political outlook (indeed perspective). in years gone by, though, governments found the bbc to be a useful tool in sending covert messages. usually this was in time of war, when bbc broadcasts were used to both transmit secret instructions to our forces and mislead the enemy with false information.
if it is so that the change of letter (and possible change in the noughts and crosses game) were secret messages, then it provokes the question of who (whom) was sending them, to whom (who) and to what end? an exciting thing to speculate is that they are all to do with secret government agent types, and that the messages were instructing James Bond types to proceed with doing stuff like poisoning the wells of our enemies, or stop mad boffins from creating a race of super humans in space, or similar. it is worth noting that, as far as i am aware, no James Bond film has ever been broadcast on the bbc, which might be deliberate to avoid drawing attention to it all, rather than just how itv happened to pay for the rights before anyone at the bbc thought to do so.
right, well, i suspect that the above is all that is appropriate for me to say on this particular subject. and one or two of the things i have written may well exceed such a mandate. no matter, for now it has been done. i can only hope, or trust, that any of the information here has been useful or beneficial to you, and is such that you have used purely for good.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment