Record four shows at once on a single DVR

Record four shows at once on a single DVR; for those not living in the USA, and looking at the stats it seems that’s the majority, that is a commercial put out here on television by AT&T.

AT&T is the big Kahuna of telephone companies here in the good old US of A; the equivalent of British Telecom in Britain and whatever the big Kahuna is in your country; the phone company who rent the lines out to all the others; the company who have the i-Phone as they were the only company who accepted it without changes from Apple.

It got me thinking as to who would want to record four shows at once on a single DV – not forgetting – the R. I can’t even begin to think of a situation where I would want to do such a thing; I mean what would I be doing whilst my DVD recorder records four shows from the TV shows available? And are there at least four shows anywhere on the networks, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, worth recording?

But I guess people will fall for it and order the service from the Big Kahuna; they will be buying something they will very rarely use as we have all done.

I have just cancelled our cable service mainly because I didn’t use hardly any of the hundreds of TV channels available. All we watch is KCET which is the PBS in Los Angeles and Jeopardy, of course, on ABC.

I watch Jeopardy to exercise my Random Access Memory; RAM to computer guys. Us computer guys, I have to say, as we are all users (victims). If there are answers I don’t know I don’t mind but I have to answer the ones I do know before the contestant and as I seem to have collected a lot of useless information over the years I do it loads of times; I can’t answer questions on calculus or other math(s) problems and I must try to have a look at Greek Mythology one of the days.

I’ve always collected useless information without knowing it; for instance somebody asked me, the other day, who was the first test tube baby and I answered immediately Louise Brown – not very clever just there in my brain.

Another thing I have tried to do over the years is to remember as many people’s names as possible; David Frost was very good at it and look where it got him; it’s very disarming to meet someone famous and when you meet them again they’ve remembered your name.

I met the great comedian Les Dawson in a pub one time when I was working for ATV doing the soap Crossroads in Birmingham. I only did 13 episodes of it so I wasn’t really famous – even though people still come and mention it to me 39 years later. Two years later he came up to me in a pub (again) in Acton, London, and not only did he remember me from the pub, he remembered my first name; very impressive.

I was doing a film a few years ago, way before Frost and Nixon, and I mentioned to another actor, who was playing the leading role, the thing about David Frost being good at remembering names and he said “Who’s David Frost?” The film was called ‘Reeling in Reality’ but I’ve forgotten the other guy’s name!

Let’s get back to recording the four shows at once and people buying so many channels that they will never watch; isn’t it the same as all the people who buy a smart phone and never use any of the applications – or apps as they call them. By the way I went into a cafe the other day and instead of having ‘sides’ listed on the menu board they had put ‘apps.’

There I am (above) eating gumbo at the famous Farmer's Market here on 3rd Street with short hair.

Yesterday I was sitting at there at the Farmer’s Market looking at the amount of people staring at their smart phones.

Some of those people were writers and there was the odd actor and a few older people sitting around. There was a big man who is not right in the head who sometimes wears very funny hats – like a duck with a feather in it.

The place is full of characters like him getting their food from the various food stalls there; I buy my coffee at Bob’s Doughnuts, banter with the Latino girls who work there, practicing my Spanish, and indulge in the odd doughnut. And the creative people who have characters all around them to write about are staring into their phones as if they are crystal balls.

Twenty five years ago there was no such industry; between then and now a whole culture has built up and now we have many amateur photographers who think they are taking pictures like David Bailey or Ansell Adams and now they are using their ‘apps’ – or looking for them more than likely.

I had just returned from doing a little show at a residential home which I’ve been to before a couple of times. I usually sing them a few songs and sometimes they join in; the first time I went there I just sang some Irish songs and when I finished they shouted out " Hey! Where’s Danny Boy?"

I don’t really know it so I 'la la la’d' it and they seemed satisfied. Yesterday I sang a few more American ones and their favourite one was ‘All I Have to do is Dream’ which they sang along to; they know nothing about iPhones, cable stations or even what a DVR is – never mind recording 4 shows at once on a single DVR.

But I bet they would have loved to spend a day at 3rd Street at the Farmer’s Market – staring at the people staring at their smartphones!! Hey there's Bob's below.