Televisions - Rocket Science?

One of my most vivid and repeated memories from primary school was those exciting occasions when the teacher felt that the furtherance of our learning could only be achieved through televisual means. "Or they just wanted an hour of peace with their feet up", I hear you cry. You cynical bastard.

Whenever this treat occurred, we would all be herded into a special room and the Television (teachers are fantastic at pronouncing capital letters when talking about technology) would be wheeled out. As our excitement rose, the teacher would, with a flourish, insert the video and press a button on the remote. Inevitably, it never worked. Cue every teacher in the area being called in to cluster round and lend their technical "Is it turned on?" expertise.

The same thing always used to happen in secondary school, except with more laughter from the audience and some people offering to help and then spending ten minutes delaying proceedings by pretending to be baffled, while carefully avoiding noticing the fact that the DVD Player wasn't plugged in to the Television. Not that I was one of those people, perish the thought.

I thought I might have left these adventures behind, but happily, I was wrong. Imagine my delight when, sitting in a courtroom as part of my mini-pupillage experience, the prosecution decided to produce some CCTV evidence that was on a DVD. It took the combined efforts of the prosecution barrister, the court clerk, the usher and the security guard to get this esoteric Device working, while the magistrates looked stonily on. It's good to see that nothing changes!