It’s also odd because Roy Wood Jr keeps hosting the UK version, as if we should know who he is

Yes the equivalent here in Leeds is now trampoline and laser tag places. Been to both with the kids and they are absolutely vast. It makes you wonder what sort of turnout they required to break even…it relied on clubbing being such a huge, regular, universal pastime

These sort of venues were still knocking about when I started going out a few years later and they were never, ever the best places to go. Who knew a retail park wasn’t where the party was at?

It may yet happen given the challenges, but I would expect the commercial sector to kick off at 5 Live basically being given an FM network even now

This #totp 1999 tour is a fascinating dive into turn of the century nightclubs that mostly don’t exist anymore. Post Hitman and Her shirt-and-tie era but pre the sector going virtually bust unless you’re called Popworld. This is what ISIS Nottingham ended up like

This comes up all the time but seems to forget BBC LR is (apart from 90 mins at breakfast) formatted entirely around music. Much as the concept sounds nice it Would Not Work unless you pumped more money in to make it all speech, thereby removing a) what many listen for and b) the point

See also iTunes being a CD. Then it wasn’t anymore because progress or something…

I recall Berlin Philarmoniker being strangely prevalent during this period too

And nope me neither on the other two

Amazon Prime logo c.2010

Not that my BluRay player is getting on a bit but this is the Amazon Prime logo…

The BBC3 blobs

Equally there is a very unfortunate “Radio 1 on BBC3” clip from 2007 on YouTube, given the allegation

Re-reading “Love You Bye - My Story” by Scott Mills. Only on page 2 and it’s already delivering

That commotion sounds very much like Phillip Hayton. Given the set sat directly opposite the little secondary set you see at the start, a bit surprising he raised his voice like that, but I guess if you’re being asked to break news if that magnitude…

I only scheduled sponsorship for Bad Lads Army around Bad Girls because…yeah, you know the rest!

Pleasingly tiny too! (Watch for scale). My TiVo recorder in 2001 was an absolute monster of a box. This could go in your pocket (not that you would, that would be weird)

Also quite refreshing to have such good picture quality given how pants everyone not in HD has ended up looking on Freeview (yes, the frame rate).And lovely to have S4C, Scotland, Alba & all the BBC regions and local radio at the bottom of the EPG (even if the latter does just bump you into Sounds).

Virtually nothing missing from “the apps” which is normally where these boxes fall down. And there’s Google Cast for the rest. TiVo bit is yer bog standard zillion fast channels with nowt you actually want to watch. Remote feels great and has loads of buttons as it should (Guide position not great)

Actually quite impressed. It’s very very fast. I was a bit worried about it seeming a cut below your average (cheaper) streaming stick and it’s not. Brings the linear channel-hopping experience to date. Changing channels is quicker than feared, not far off Freeview.

Just in case my post didn’t make it clear, it was for my birthday.

They seem to be surprisingly adaptable - they were powering Virgin’s boxes for a while and now with Manhattan.
Their bits are quite inelegant. Plus their button is square in the middle of the remote where really Freely should be. But at a guess it wouldn’t happen without them…

Manhattan Aero Freely box

In 2010 for my birthday I got one of the first Freeview HD boxes available in shops for my birthday. In 2026….

I thought it was pretty bold of them to put Rudolph Walker front and centre. Whatever their plans for the character, the guy’s 86! Looking good on it but still…

Thank you…I do love that I got on their mailing list in about 2004 and it’s still plugging away with birthday emails…

Kaiser Chiefs also send their regards

Start of Chris Moyles this morning: “How are you?”

Ah yes maybe told to by doctors. Or preferably maybe just not release a single at all…

You can argue viewers didn’t care about seeing that in the green room bits, or consecutive acts on the same stage, but that just feels like basic continuity. Feels like they’re one step away from the presenter changing mid show because hey what’s the problem… #totp

End of the second BBC4 #totp last night had all the acts standing behind Gail. Nowt wrong with that. Except Steps were there, who weren’t on. And aren’t due to be on for 3 weeks.

What was with sitting down all the way through? Was she injured or something? Drained the energy out of the whole thing