I came across this clip on Youtube. It is a fairly random clip, a few adverts , a trailer for a UEFA cup tie (Johann Cruyff's last) and a few minutes of News at Ten with Reginal Bosanquet. When this clip was aird I was sixteen. At the time we had three TV channels. My Dad had a Ford Capri, which was probably as good as it got for a working man.
I found it fascinating.watching the clip. It is interesting watching Reginal Bosanquet read the news. I realised that at the time the Newsreaders on News at Ten were real superstars. I don't think I could name a single one now. Was Reginal Bosanquet better at reading an autocue than the current lot? Ws Gordon Honeycomb sexier than the bloke on BBC news as I write this?
In truth, no. What has happened is that our viewing habits have changed. The thousands of channels we have has diluted our ability to pay attention. On BBC London today there was was a discussion as to whether we have a shorter attention span than a Goldfish. I suspect we have. When I was a teenager, I'd listen to albums (vinyl) all the way through. Now my kids get bored, even with tracks they like and are constantly fiddling with their iPADs. Why I wonder. The answer is because they can. I do wonder if any of us can focus for more than 20 seconds on anything. It occurs to me as a musician that I should maybe release an album of 20 second long songs.
The Fall sang a song in 1977 called 'repetition'. The Hook was "there's repitition in our music and we're never going to lose it". It is pretty clear to me that Repetition and drudgery is out of vogue. If Reggy Bosanquet had been a newsreader today, the only way we'd have heard of him had he been selected for Big Brother or I'm A Celebrity. It is odd the way the world evolves. In 1978, I assumed that by 2015, we'd be taking holidays on the moon. I sort of thought we'd have 24 hour news channels, having been vaguely aware of cable TV in the USA, but I assumed this would spark a deeper interest in News and foreign affiars. In fact, what happens is we watch the news channel for 2 minutes when something else finishes, before the next program starts, As such the news channels are trite and bland. The clip shown, we have a lead story about a second rate cabinet minister in dispute with the British Waterways Board. Can you imagine that making the news today? It was only watching this I realised just how dumbed down we've become. Now its all style over substance.
Come Back Reggie - all is forgiven.
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