Technical Prowess of the BBC Dept

I happen to like Mark Steyn's ruminations on music and theatre rather more than his political stuff -- the politics I can drum up myself (though not with Steyn's peculiar gift for the pun-as-stiletto), but I have learned an immense amount about the "standards" from Steyn's columns over the years, with highly positive effects on my IPod playlist. Granted, the Troika would object to that last bit on two points: (a) I don't actually have an IPod, my "IPod" playlist residing happily on a laptop that I run through whatever speakers are handy as required, and (b) the Troika do not believe that the addition of, say, "The Best Is Yet to Come" to said playlist is properly designated a "positive effect." But you get my point all the same.

Still, being a connoisseur of human folly and incompetence, I have to admit that in reading Steyn's review of a "Perry Mason" episode written from England, the Land of the BBC, I got the most pleasure out of the following anecdote tacked onto the end:

Hopeful of finding a common thread to the programmes reviewed, I turned to that all-time classic cop series, Naked City (BSB Galaxy, Saturday): you know, "There are eight million stories in the naked city; this has been one of them." At midnight, the programme suddenly disappeared, leaving a riot of fuzzy lines.... Ever the dutiful critic, I roused myself and called up.

Eventually the phone was answered: "Hullo, er, British Broadcasting Communications. No, er, British, er, Satellite, er - hullo?" I identified myself as The Viewer. "Wait a minute," he advised, and returned a while later with someone else. "Your Galaxy Channel's gone off the air," I said. "Has it?" he asked, and went off to investigate. "You're right," he said, sounding surprised anyone would notice...