Do you remember the test card?
The BBC used to broadcast it when they had no programme material to show.
When I was a kid the test card seemed to be on more often than not… especially during school holidays. It used to take about ten minutes for the telly to warm up only to find the bloody test card was on… again. No point turning over – there was no ‘over’.
I wonder if the test card is a metaphor for my generation? We didn’t actually switch the telly on and wait for it to warm up ‘cos the bloody test card would almost certainly be on (and we’d get told off for turning the TV on and off again in quick succession). Instead we’d go out and ‘play’, explore, climb trees, play football, etc.
Perhaps the test card also taught us an important lesson about communication. If you don’t have anything to say – don’t bloody say anything!
Nowadays of course you can’t squeeze a test card in between the shite that they broadcast 24/7 and there are dozens of channels of it too. Children’s programs of dubious value and grammar, reinforced during school holidays with even more choice of computer-generated fantasy cartoons...
I wonder if the demise of the test card is not only responsible for a generation of lard-arses that couldn’t climb a tree if a rabid dog was chewing their arse but the constant noise that emanates from them (the lard arses, not the rabid dog)? For it seems that the average child can stop talking for just long enough to re-load their mouth with another over-sized chunk of burger and then continue talking while eating.
I wonder if the energy crisis is caused not by people failing to switch their TV off rather than to standby but failing to switch it off at all.
