Off-Colour
I've been seeing the world through a yellow haze this past week. It isn't jaundice, just a compensatory mechanism in the brain. At least I have some proof that I have a brain at last.
It's all down to the television. Our large TV set blew up a few weeks ago while I was away working. I was told about it when I got back on a Friday. I lugged it out of the way and put a spare set in place of it. This set had a small screen, and I remembered that I had some clever Fresnel screens that were supposed to magnify the picture, so I propped one of them in place. It worked very well, or I thought so anyway, it just looked a little odd standing on spindly telescopic arms a foot in front of the telly. It was a mixture of Tomorrow's World "Gosh, giant pictures!" and Blue Peter-ish "here's something we made earlier from old coat hangers and a sheet of plastic".
The cold that had started on me as soon as I had stopped eating the Garlic got worse. I set off home on a Friday after a week of snow, expecting a few problems, and well-stocked up with cough-sweets. I got the problems with a vengeance, not because of the snow, but because of an accident that closed the M1 for 2 hours. The consequent delay than caused me to lose another 2 hours crawling through the two sets of roadworks on the A34. I got home 4 hours late, with the cold now in full swing and no cough-sweets left. And there, waiting for me, was a different television.
One of Little Petal's daughters had come to stay for a week while I was away, to get a break from her children. The site of the tiny telly behind a giant magnifying screen had moved her to persuade her partner to drag out their old telly and bring it down to us. It was certainly a more normal size, but it seemed to have a problem with the colours. The reds were glorious, the blues shone with a phosphorescent hue, but greens looked dull and strange, and the yellows were all orange.
There was no remote with this set, and I couldn't make our universal remote control talk to it either, so there was no way to get to any system settings to adjust the colour. I wanted to put the smaller telly back on the shelf, but the cold was such that I didn't think I could lift the new (Ha!) telly down to make the space. For a week I sat and suffered the colour-shift, thinking that at least I was getting an insight into what life would look like to an alien from another planet who should come to visit us. When I got up from the sitting room and walked into the kitchen the white walls shone with a sickly-yellow hue as my brain struggled to un-compensate for the strange colour mixture I was being forced to watch.
It still didn't stop me from seeing a rare treat towards the end of my week off. I am an avid fan of 'Two Pints of Lager', and found an episode late one night that was a musical. I don't know if it was made for a Christmas one year, or just as a spoof for the hell of it, but I wish I'd taped it. I could then have watched it again in better colour. As it is, I'm going to have to wait for the repeats of the repeats of the repeats to come around. Are there any other "Two-Pints" fans out there who can tell me more about it? Such as what the actual colours of the costumes and sets were, please?
It's all down to the television. Our large TV set blew up a few weeks ago while I was away working. I was told about it when I got back on a Friday. I lugged it out of the way and put a spare set in place of it. This set had a small screen, and I remembered that I had some clever Fresnel screens that were supposed to magnify the picture, so I propped one of them in place. It worked very well, or I thought so anyway, it just looked a little odd standing on spindly telescopic arms a foot in front of the telly. It was a mixture of Tomorrow's World "Gosh, giant pictures!" and Blue Peter-ish "here's something we made earlier from old coat hangers and a sheet of plastic".
The cold that had started on me as soon as I had stopped eating the Garlic got worse. I set off home on a Friday after a week of snow, expecting a few problems, and well-stocked up with cough-sweets. I got the problems with a vengeance, not because of the snow, but because of an accident that closed the M1 for 2 hours. The consequent delay than caused me to lose another 2 hours crawling through the two sets of roadworks on the A34. I got home 4 hours late, with the cold now in full swing and no cough-sweets left. And there, waiting for me, was a different television.
One of Little Petal's daughters had come to stay for a week while I was away, to get a break from her children. The site of the tiny telly behind a giant magnifying screen had moved her to persuade her partner to drag out their old telly and bring it down to us. It was certainly a more normal size, but it seemed to have a problem with the colours. The reds were glorious, the blues shone with a phosphorescent hue, but greens looked dull and strange, and the yellows were all orange.
There was no remote with this set, and I couldn't make our universal remote control talk to it either, so there was no way to get to any system settings to adjust the colour. I wanted to put the smaller telly back on the shelf, but the cold was such that I didn't think I could lift the new (Ha!) telly down to make the space. For a week I sat and suffered the colour-shift, thinking that at least I was getting an insight into what life would look like to an alien from another planet who should come to visit us. When I got up from the sitting room and walked into the kitchen the white walls shone with a sickly-yellow hue as my brain struggled to un-compensate for the strange colour mixture I was being forced to watch.
It still didn't stop me from seeing a rare treat towards the end of my week off. I am an avid fan of 'Two Pints of Lager', and found an episode late one night that was a musical. I don't know if it was made for a Christmas one year, or just as a spoof for the hell of it, but I wish I'd taped it. I could then have watched it again in better colour. As it is, I'm going to have to wait for the repeats of the repeats of the repeats to come around. Are there any other "Two-Pints" fans out there who can tell me more about it? Such as what the actual colours of the costumes and sets were, please?
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 9:16 am
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