Interlude - tv choons
Mrs Wash had 1st dibs over a run of late night viewing since Easter, in-between split-shifts and our current Covid hellscape. "I Claudius" recently concluded and the theme tune is a genuine bomb jingle for the purple, serving up Caesarian mischief as the depravity of Tiberius and Caligula is offset by Livia's continual scheming and murders. The musical theme intro, like the series itself, is as good as anything the BBC's produced. I was too young to see the program initially, but i recall my folks ushering us to bed early beforehand, whispers about cleavage and murder wafting up the wooden hill. I love it - Brian Blessed, Sian Phillips, George Baker, John Hurt, Patrick Stewart and Derek Jacobi - and it still rocks
Actors and plots aside, the intro theme's unsurpassed blast of ascending and descending scales adds a spiralling heft to the chaos of imperial pomp and bombast. The composition quickly gives way to softer flute harmonics (which i wish there was more of), as the serpent slithers over archaic mosaic portraiture. Unfortunately, an "official" YT version seems a bit smoother than the one broadcast. Where the original has a boiling scream for an entry and far more drama, YT's watery/toned down alternative is the only one available, hence including an audio rip to help articulate this consideration. Help yourself and indulge the series too if you can
drive.google.com
To offset the genius of I Claudius, a series of aural prolapses from the BBC that garnished its sports coverage for aeons. Anyone who heard such monstrosities can guess what's coming... the sound of stranded rain-sodden, dead-end days and nights, all 3-channel choices clogged with soul-sapping crap. There must have been committees who met and pontificated over moods and selections, wtf were they thinking? The first is among the worst, both saggy and hoary. To me, it sounds like the faded, flared denim of Status Quo, with a tinge of Bay City Rollers. Behold the wankathon that is the game we call snooker
Appalling memories. To compound this sense of disgust, a more up-beat synth work out, the antithesis of the reality of watching competition darts. Listen for the triplet of thunk-thunk-thunks symbolising darts hitting an actual board. Genius imagination folks
Skiing. Who even did that? Coined up cunts from Nottingham High School, that's who. Strings (
@Corpsey ) so infinitely terrible they signalled a slow death of exclusivity as some cunt called Franz Klammer slalomed through networks of poles. The crashes were pretty cool mind, but no-one
really gave a fuck because something better would inevitably follow. As dramatic as a cum-soaked sock
Wimbledon. The Ra never bombed it which was shamefully negligent, ISIS too, primo "legitimate target" imho. Only thing i ever used a tennis racket for was swatting flies. Every year, this bizarre annual rite of white-clad heroes and heroines would vomit themselves all over peak-summer. I absolutely despised Wimbledon. The strawberries and cream, weird dress codes and nonce-in-chief Cliff Richard singing in the rain, all infused together into a whiter than white diarrhoea palette of Englishness. I don't hate England btw, just some of its coded peculiarities. A tune more suited to the 1950's, but Auntie Beeb stuck with it and EVERY summer you'd encounter its epic malevolence. So bad it defies language
Cricket has historically proven an unenviable past-time for those of us from north of the border and over the Irish Sea, but at least the broadcasts included a track by Booker T. Dropping that now would be a cop-out. Listen instead to what the BBC incorporated into Grandstand, its leading weekend round up of sports results, echoing the hollow sound of valium-&-cider soaked oblivion because you couldn't score any draw
Lastly, the original samba-heavy, chirpy brass theme to MOTD. This tune, perhaps more than any other, perfectly encapsulates the disconnect between British aspiration and the dull grey, rain-lashed crash of collective reality. It's had an upgrade in the last few years, but behold the perfect awfulness that besmirched our national game's broadcasting for decades. A genuine war crime