Thursday, 12 March 2009

History of the Future: Cars (BBC4)

A wonderful little programme tonight, presented by Phill Jupitus, about the 1950s visions of what back then they thought cars would be like today. Some of those machines made me nearly weep with nostalgia (I really liked the safety concept car which had handlebars instead of a steering wheel, driver sat in the middle, loads of rocket and nuclear (I kid you not!) powered prototypes, and a monstrous Ford with at least three penises at each end). How can the BBC hide a gem like this away on BBC4, and restrict it to a half-hour one-off? It should have been a full hour, if not a series. Still available on iPlayer for a few more days (I may watch it again tomorrow - the TV Thursday good programme scheduling crunch is over for another week, so nothing else to view for the next 130 hours or so...)
A particularly brilliant soundtrack, ranging from John Martyn to Dean Martin via the Clash, Jonathan Richman and many others I've now forgotten.
The reason this post is so late is that I've spent an hour or more trying to hack my way into the Beeb's Points of View website, as I wanted to congratulate and encourage them. I'm a registered member, but hardly ever use it, so had forgotten key information like the name of my parents' first pet or something (must be more than six characters: what?) For a media tart, Auntie sure does build big high thick walls around herself. It's like nailing jelly to custard with a twig for a nail and a meerkat for a hammer.

No comments:

Post a Comment