I was sitting at my first Blue-Ray disc feature film the other night. Whilst watching the enhanced clarity and sound on the sleek widescreen LCD set, my mind wandered. The plot, I found, not so enhanced by the new media. I recalled back in 2004, when my Grandmother’s eyesight was failing, a friend offered their old set. It was “large” they said. Provided a pickup could be arranged, it was free to a good home. Granny was very excited. Queue me firing up the ol’ Volvo and putting the pedal to the metal: Motown blasting from the radio/tape player.
On arriving to collect the television I had to concede it was a large set, but really that was by a technicality. The technicality of the cabinet style casing. It was a monolith of a device. Truly, I would not have discounted it being a radio sideboard from the 1930's where some crazy man had cut into it a small window to see the small orchestra inside. It was more processed wood than screen. It weighed a tonne.
Like it was on the boot of a Datsun Cherry, a 3D plastic label permanently affixed on the unit’s brow proudly boasted “Now in Electro-Colour”. It had the fantastic audacity to actually have it in moulded italics.
Other features included 4 buttons for a possible 4 television channels. Of course, back when it was new, the idea of 4 channels I am sure sounded like a far off future, like the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace. Given this was pre-Channel 5 CSI Sundays then, at the time of me assessing it, I’ll concede not having the capability of mistakenly switching to Channel 5 actually could have been seen as a feature. Further, it had a slide toggle for volume adjustment of the speaker hidden behind a black grill. Or to pretend you were powering the house up to Warp Factor 8. [Not that I ever did that around the house – covertly turning every dial and pushing all levers in the hope of making the house go… faster. That would be madness. Anyway, back to the story…] it had a knob under the volume toggle which, for all I knew, may or may not have been to alter the radiation emitting levels from the valves.
“It has a smaller screen than what you already have” I said, “It doesn’t have a remote control, not even one from the early 80's attached to a wire”. Taking one look at it, Granny responded, “Aye!” then, running a hand across the top, “But look at the surface, I could pit a lot o’ things oan that!”
The surface area, I could not doubt. It did have a lot of surface potential. And Gran ate her breakfast off that TV for many happy mornings.
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