Thursday, January 31, 2008

Dish Of The Day

With high winds buffeting the Millionaire's Playground again this morning, it looks like another great day for raising the roof, or popping out with your camera and snapping a few aerial photos!

Speaking of which I'm indebted to Mary, who describes herself as a 'fan' (Ooh! spare my blushes!), for the photo of this, er, dishy collection. Mary writes:

My dear Graham went home to visit his parents over the holiday. To avoid becoming house-bound, avoid parent overload, and generally do his body good, he walked your beloved Ile de Thanet, putting in about 5 miles each of the seven days he was home. He also made a photo journal of his travels. One of the sights that he noticed and found a need to document was the appearance of and proliferation of these pieces of (somewhat) necessary evil. The beautiful old architecture surely would benefit from a ban on these eyesores, but I wonder what new technology would be capable of invisibly replacing the necessity of the hardware? When that happens, I wish your council God-speed in passing a ban on them.

I couldn't agree more Mary!

13 comments:

Mitch said...

While agreeing with your corresspondent about the eysores appearing all over our buildings. I tried without success to hide the dish round the side of my house and to be honest I was adament nothing should appear on the front. The signal was marvellous for about 3 years and then the pictures gave 'no signal' warning advice on some of the channels. This was due to interference from growing trees with their waving branches.
Short of seriously pollarding said lovely trees. Had to position the dish on the front for 'what the engineer called 'a line if sight' signal. Everything now works OK, unless the tree pokes its branches round the corner, then it's war!

Anonymous said...

There are 'non-dish' TV solutions already available, but East Cliff residents at least cannot use either today. 'Cable' e.g. Virgin Media (another famous Richard) is one and the other is 'Freeview' i.e. Digital signals via your normal ariel.

Thanet is thus still effectively in the B/W era for TV technology unless you have a dish. Mind you, there's not much worth watching these days anyway.

Richard Eastcliff said...

As regular readers know, I would not have Rupert Murdoch's old bollocks in my cliff top mansion even if he paid me. I already spend £130 a year for the privilege of receiving such televisual delights as there are on Freeview, why should I pay double or treble to watch Topless WAGs Get Frisky or other such MurdochVision nonsense?

BTW, my aerial is in the loft and it seems to work OK most of the time. No eyesores here!

Anonymous said...

Thanet was cabled up by Rediffusion 50 years ago. What happened to them?

Anonymous said...

What about the elderly and infirm? They have little comfort and TV is a good antidote.
I agree the dishes are not pretty but a necessity for some.
The able bodied are always forgetting the less fortunate disabled.

Anonymous said...

I thought there were rules on the amount and height of sat dishes,I well remember the council taking all the dishes off the flats in millmead and replacing them with communal ones,I think the rule is 1 per property and not higher than the tpo of thr building or am I wrong,again?

Anonymous said...

sorry about spelling,just a bit drunk!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

Drunk at 4.37pm! Lucky you! (Assuming your on GMT) ;)

Redifusion. Hmm, I remember vaguely that we had cable back in the late 70's for a trial period, so not sure why there are no providers today (Probabaly the wrong demographic). I confess to having a dish as Sky+ is just so damn good but I'd love to get rid of the dish.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Freeview with a hard drive is just as good as Sky+, and no money goes to the Digger!

Anonymous said...

Freeview + HDD - I didn't know you could, but that's a good idea. What's the Eastcliff reception like ECR? I'd like to get my BBC3/4 and be able to see Natasha Kerplunksky on Five news.

Richard Eastcliff said...

Digital reception via Freeview is excellent 90% of the time, as long as you've got a decent aerial and a signal amplifier.

I do get interference occasionally, and sometimes the signal bombs out for a while. Often when the TransEuropa ferry is coming in or out, I've noticed, when it becomes not so much TV as radar!

Lucy Mail said...

Did noone take heed when they showed George Orwell's 1984 on (ironically) the telly?
All the device really is, these days, is an instrument to instruct people on how to conduct themselves in their day-to-day lives.
Well it's certainly not for me! You'll find mine in a charred heap in my back garden, along with my bra, poor old Crouching Tiddles and most of the things that I've ever cooked for myself!

Cirkux said...

Why on earth should one be required to have a signal amplifier at all in what is purportedly an industrialised nation? I come from sparsely populated Sweden where you get good reception for the freeview stuff everyfriggingwhere without dish or amplifier. The communications infrastructure in Thanet leaves lots to be desired. I didn't, for example, know that there were flats with no phone point in this day and age. What's that about?