John Walker's Electronic House

It seems that anyone I worked with in the radio days is doomed.

I only met Jeremy Beadle very briefly, but it seems enough for the apparent curse I have. He was producing the dreadful (but very popular) OK! To Talk on Talk Radio – an OK! magazine-sponsored celebrity somethingorother, that was part of Dear Kelvin’s plans for the station. It meant that Beadle would be in the Talk office a couple of days a week at the point I was working day shifts.

I guess Ok! To Talk captured the Beadle Confusion. Every radio or television project he was involved with was two things: utterly hateful, and a massive ratings success. And because of this, I think he’s fairly villified. However, speak to anyone who worked with him on anything, and they’ll tell you what an extraordinary nice guy he was. I don’t know about nice – I never felt entirely comfortable around him – but he was ferociously clever. The sort of clever that you have to respect. He knew how to create television that would work, and saw no reason to let notions of quality get in the way. Which I think was a great shame. Were he less canny and more creative, he might have produced some fantastic stuff.

The show segment I was working on was a consumer complaints sort of thing – Watchdog on the radio – that when it first started wasn’t quite working. It didn’t gel, and it wasn’t good radio. Beadle one day in the office walked over to the team and said, “Call it Scambusters”. And they did. And it immediately took off. Not just because it was a catchy, silly name, but because it gave the hour an identity. Quickly they realised their three producers (oh, remember when radio shows had three producers?) were called Tom, Richard and Harry, and it became “Scambusters, With Tom, Dick, and Harry”. The behaviour on the show changed – they started adding increasing amounts of nonsense, including sound effects, on-air arguments between the team, and some excellent irritating treatment of companies who were screwing people over. (For instance, we’d phone the CEO of Time/Tiny computers on air every single day, finding new ways to lie our way past his secretary, and then ask him the same question – ooh, he hated us). It was a nice thing to work on – we got people their money back, or their goods replaced. And we got to piss off the bastards at Time/Tiny. And it all sprang out of one simple name change. And that seemed to be Beadle’s schtick – an uncanny knowledge of what works.

So I only blabber on to say, don’t only remember him as the cock who presented Beadle’s About. He was a really brainy guy, who just didn’t seem to have much care how he used it. Dunno if that’s a good thing of course.

Could people I met in radio stations stop dying now please? It feels like a really grotesque form of name-dropping.

I think it’s only inappropriate to finish: A big hand for Jeremy Beadle.

My good friend Kim is once more risking life, limb and mostly blisters, as she takes on a walk to raise money for Susan G Komen For The Cure. Kim explains,

“So here I am in a new city. I’m back in Philadelphia, and mom and I are participating in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day. While the Avon Walk was 39.3 miles over two days, the 3-day is just that—60 miles over three days! Much as I did for the Avon Walk, I plan on making every mile of this one.”

So, give her money. Well, not her, but people who spend money making the lives of those with breast cancer easier, and fund projects to hopefully prevent women from dying stupidly early, via her.

We’ve got to do this for the boobies, people. So give what you can.

If everyone who reads this blog on a daily basis gave $10 (a measly £5), Kim would make her target immediately.

Change, does not roll in, on the wheels of inevitability.
But comes through continuous struggle.
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor.
It must be demanded by the oppressed.

Exciting times are afoot. Hacker group Anonymous have announced a full on war with The Church of Scientology cult.

It all began over this:

(continue reading…)

After a strange morning of my blog going mad, updating to the latest WordPress seems to have fixed that. So now I can tell you all about a new piece up on Eurogamer, discussing the completely lovely Crayon Physics Deluxe.

In my house we have a phrase. Well, in my house we have about four hundred phrases, including, “Mmmm-mmmm, so good”, “That light bulb had one day left ’til retirement”, and “Shotgun!” But today we’re discussing “PHYSICS!”

This phrase is shouted at specific moments, rather than some sort of Oxbridge version of Tourette’s. It’s when we drop something, or something falls over, or the cat falls off his elaborate cat tree. Anything that exhibits the properties of gravity will be met by this cheer. And why? Because physics are best. And that, in a big way, is why Crayon Physics Deluxe is looking so great.

Best comment so far:

“I tried the demo and found it charming but nothing more than a tech demo. And a simple one if that. Charm can only go so far.”

I tried some baked beans once, but they were only baked beans, which is a bit of a major failing I think.

Gots me a review on EG this afternoon.

It’s the completely splendid, spend my entire time playing, has replaced sleep, Illust Logic + Colourful Logic.

Hudson Soft does it again. Picross, done perfectly. Trying to fathom the logic of UK games publishers, and that none of them have picked up the Hudson Soft Puzzle Series, will only hurt your brain. A collection of the most sublime puzzlers, fearfully and wonderfully made, so very perfect for the DS. It only gets more bemusing when you realise that most of these games – Sudoku, Akari, Kakuro, Picross, and of course Slitherlink – appear in national newspapers, magazines and probably the backs of shampoo bottles. Do they not like making money or something?

When looking to stay somewhere in Bath, perhaps don’t stay here.

I love the idea of people coming to this site via Private Eye, and discovering that I mostly write about TV no one cares about, rant about idiots, and post videos of joy like this: