mean that she and Sparks’ dad owned the world’s only functioning 1978 vintage VCR. Sparks plugged in the 17-foot lead connecting the remote control to the recorder, removed the polythene bag the remote was wrapped in, and pressed “play”.
A BBC logo as timeless and as dated as a heraldic blazon fuzzed up onto the screen, a cartoon globe of a long-lost world spun idly, and a long-sacked continuity announcer told the people of 20 years ago that they were about to watch the first programme in a new series about the far frontiers of science, and that this, which was as he said the first programme, was about the possibility of there being alternate worlds. He went on to essentially tell nervous people and anyone with a dog or a cat to go and watch ITV, and the programme lurched into action. The whole thing took about two days and all but killed Sparks’ desire to watch the tape. Things were more leisurely then , he thought, despondently.
After some film of stars and what may have been all of Holst’s The Planets, Sparks resisted the urge to lash the remote control lead like a whip and flick the whole damn thing out of the window, and settled back to try and concentrate.
The programme was introduced by a plummy man, aided by some cheap green lines on a blue cartoon background, and appeared to be saying two important things about alternate worlds. One, they didn’t exist and two, if they did, they shouldn’t. But the plummy man did reluctantly acknowledge that people had talked about these things, while managing to suggest that such speculation was a bit vulgar, unless of course it was done in a documentary presented by a plummy man. There was a montage of photos of scientists, pundits and philosophers, who Sparks thought all looked a bit mental. He was beginning to get really bored and long for some violence (“Take that, Sir Isaac!”) when an engraving of some 18th century men waving rolled-up paper at each other appeared and the plummy man said: “Most devoted to the theory of worlds outside our own was the so-called Society of God’s Perfect World.”
Sparks sat up on the sofa, electrified by his own standards.
“The Society, as it was known for short, was founded by eminent men of the day. Scientists, philosophers and polymaths were all entranced by the fanciful notion that our world is, as it were, random…”
Then the door opened.
“Cup of tea, dear?” said his mum, coming in with one anyway.
“Um,” said Sparks, frantically trying to find the PAUSE button on the aged remote. It didn’t have one.
“Naturally there were dissenters,” the commentator was saying, “These men felt that…”
Sparks couldn’t hear what these men felt as his mum was now opening the noisiest drawer in the world. She finally wrenched the drawer open, took out a coaster, put the coaster on the table and put the cup of tea on it. Sparks tried to crane his ears around her as she moved, but all the tea and table action was pretty obscuring and, by the time his mother had gone, the plummy man had moved on to the early fiction of Jules Verne, which wasn’t relevant at all but did provide an opportunity to show a painting of a huge squid holding a steamship like a ciggie.
“Don’t say thank you, will you?” said Sparks’ mum cheerfully as she left the room.
Sparks stopped the tape and rewound it, prodding madly at the remote. It creaked into action and suddenly the tape leapt back four minutes. Sparks tried to hit PLAY, jabbed RECORD instead and spent the next few seconds trying to get the machine to stop recording. By the time he had had the smart idea of abandoning the remote, leaping across the room and turning the recorder off at the wall, it was too late; they were halfway through the huge squid.
Sparks sat down and disconsolately watched the rest of the documentary, which was highly vague and factless, and then turned into an hour of golf again. He put the tape in a box marked KRAMER VS KRAMER and took his
A BBC logo as timeless and as dated as a heraldic blazon fuzzed up onto the screen, a cartoon globe of a long-lost world spun idly, and a long-sacked continuity announcer told the people of 20 years ago that they were about to watch the first programme in a new series about the far frontiers of science, and that this, which was as he said the first programme, was about the possibility of there being alternate worlds. He went on to essentially tell nervous people and anyone with a dog or a cat to go and watch ITV, and the programme lurched into action. The whole thing took about two days and all but killed Sparks’ desire to watch the tape. Things were more leisurely then , he thought, despondently.
After some film of stars and what may have been all of Holst’s The Planets, Sparks resisted the urge to lash the remote control lead like a whip and flick the whole damn thing out of the window, and settled back to try and concentrate.
The programme was introduced by a plummy man, aided by some cheap green lines on a blue cartoon background, and appeared to be saying two important things about alternate worlds. One, they didn’t exist and two, if they did, they shouldn’t. But the plummy man did reluctantly acknowledge that people had talked about these things, while managing to suggest that such speculation was a bit vulgar, unless of course it was done in a documentary presented by a plummy man. There was a montage of photos of scientists, pundits and philosophers, who Sparks thought all looked a bit mental. He was beginning to get really bored and long for some violence (“Take that, Sir Isaac!”) when an engraving of some 18th century men waving rolled-up paper at each other appeared and the plummy man said: “Most devoted to the theory of worlds outside our own was the so-called Society of God’s Perfect World.”
Sparks sat up on the sofa, electrified by his own standards.
“The Society, as it was known for short, was founded by eminent men of the day. Scientists, philosophers and polymaths were all entranced by the fanciful notion that our world is, as it were, random…”
Then the door opened.
“Cup of tea, dear?” said his mum, coming in with one anyway.
“Um,” said Sparks, frantically trying to find the PAUSE button on the aged remote. It didn’t have one.
“Naturally there were dissenters,” the commentator was saying, “These men felt that…”
Sparks couldn’t hear what these men felt as his mum was now opening the noisiest drawer in the world. She finally wrenched the drawer open, took out a coaster, put the coaster on the table and put the cup of tea on it. Sparks tried to crane his ears around her as she moved, but all the tea and table action was pretty obscuring and, by the time his mother had gone, the plummy man had moved on to the early fiction of Jules Verne, which wasn’t relevant at all but did provide an opportunity to show a painting of a huge squid holding a steamship like a ciggie.
“Don’t say thank you, will you?” said Sparks’ mum cheerfully as she left the room.
Sparks stopped the tape and rewound it, prodding madly at the remote. It creaked into action and suddenly the tape leapt back four minutes. Sparks tried to hit PLAY, jabbed RECORD instead and spent the next few seconds trying to get the machine to stop recording. By the time he had had the smart idea of abandoning the remote, leaping across the room and turning the recorder off at the wall, it was too late; they were halfway through the huge squid.
Sparks sat down and disconsolately watched the rest of the documentary, which was highly vague and factless, and then turned into an hour of golf again. He put the tape in a box marked KRAMER VS KRAMER and took his
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