Ofcom reducing ADR wait to 8 weeks

[Rik]

From September, the waiting period before a dispute can be taken to ADR will drop from 12 to 8 weeks. Good news for the consumer. 

Full story:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/alt_dis_res/statement/

[Simon]

Luckily, that won't affect us. 

[Rik]

No, but it's good for all those in pain.

[Sebby]

It sounds good, but wherever Ofcom are involved, I'm not hopeful.

[Rik]

Realist.

[colonelsun]

In an ideal word where the customer was king...there'd be no need for a dispute process.

[Rik]

Let me know if you come across it.

[colonelsun]

I come across it in my dreams.....where i imagine this country is being governed as it should be and our opposition party isn't Rory Bremner.....though he does a sterling job in my opinion.

[Rik]

 

I miss Mike Yarwood.

[Gary]

I miss Mike Yarwood.

What happended to him? I used to watch his show on a Saturday night....that was a long time ago 

[Simon]

Yes, I'm not sure if he's still alive. 

[Rik]

Apparently, he is...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Yarwood

[colonelsun]

Mike was a class act, i grew up with him, not literally, just as part of the viewing family...back when we had family tv and everyone sat around the same small box in the corner of the room.

I read on Digital Spy that Dora Bryan was now penniless and in a nursing home. So sad...

[Simon]

I actually never thought Mike Yarwood was that good an impressionist, when compared to, say, the likes of John Culshaw and Rory Bremner.  Yarwood always sounded like Yarwood to me, whereas I could easily be fooled by Culshaw and Bremner, that it was the real person.

[colonelsun]

I actually never thought Mike Yarwood was that good an impressionist, when compared to, say, the likes of John Culshaw and Rory Bremner.  Yarwood always sounded like Yarwood to me, whereas I could easily be fooled by Culshaw and Bremner, that it was the real person.

Yeah...have to agree with you, but at the time there weren't that many impressionists around doing a mix of stuff. Of course there was the icon Stanley Baxter but he didn't do politics. I managed to rake out some ancient videos from the loft and Yarwood was on one tape followed by a now forgotten documentary on the BT red phone box. I'd forgotten how long the sketches were, the jokes were predictably tagged to an era and most went over my head. With everything so quickly edited these days it doesn't compare well. But..it's of it's time.

[Simon]

I used to find Stanley Baxter a little discomforting, in a not funny way.  He seemed to have a sinister overtone, and would probably have fitted in well with The League of Gentlemen.  This is a local forum, for local people...  

[Rik]

I agree with you on SB, Simon. He always made me feel uncomfortable.

[colonelsun]

Uncomfortable? I guess you're talking about his female impressions. Oddly, set against the times they were created, i thought they were flattering to women and put them at the heart of the comedy. On The Buses was around at the same time and nobody suggests it's female characters were treated fairly. Curiously, On The Buses....Love Thy Neighbour...both shows are kept at arm's length by broadcasters today. Strange that an era in comedy could create such diverse shows and that today's audience has branded some shows of that era as downright racist? Well...with a few hundred satellite stations nobody seems in a rush to repeat It Aint Half Hot Mum.

[Rik]

Yes, it was the female impersonations that troubled me. He neither went for a full drag effect or a caricature, but seemed to try and emulate female sexuality. ISTR On the Buses being shown lately, possibly on one of the ITV channels. I didn't find it funny originally, I suspect it would be less so now. So much humour, though, from 30 years ago, seems not to be funny anymore. I guess humour is a very fashionable commodity.

[colonelsun]

Baxter was/is a conundrum. His perfection on screen is legendary as is his female characterisations and yet in the haste to create a believable female he seems to have gone beyond what most straight married guys would have gone. The character Lily Savage, on the other hand, is what the public expects, a gay man dressed up as a woman....there is little effort spent on hiding the fact it's a drag act, the character even acknowledges the fact, but in my opinion Baxter was more professional, more family orientated and yet this youthful generation barely knows he exists. It seems wholesome comedy with inuendo isn't as trendy as getting a laugh from something offensive. But everything has to evolve....otherwise we'd still be churning out radio comedies like Around The Horne...although i enjoy listening to that on the BBCs webpage.

[Rik]

The Horne programmes were classics, even if I didn't fully understand them all at the time.

[colonelsun]

The Horne programmes were classics, even if I didn't fully understand them all at the time.

Those shows are a perfect example of classic programmes, each generation finds something new in them, they're almost historic documents as well as they do accurately depict life for gay men before the law change. My understanding of the Horne shows is completely different today from 10 years ago, as a maturer guy i somehow get some of the subtleties my younger self either ignored or dismissed.

[Rik]

When I first heard them I was just entering my teens and had no idea that there was a world out there which I'd never encountered.

[colonelsun]

When I first heard them I was just entering my teens and had no idea that there was a world out there which I'd never encountered.

My story is very similar. I grew up in the sticks, one farmhouse and an abandoned government listening post and it was 40 miles to civilisation and the nearest Kit Kat bar. My early school years consisted of 11 other kids and a frustrated, and out-of-her-depth teacher who was also a failed actress. (She was an stand in on the soap Emmerdale Farm until she found herself stood in a pile of cow manure for hours on end). So radio and tv offered me an eye on the world and fuelled my aspirations so to speak. Heck it all sounds like a Catherine Cookson novel....all cinder paths and fat women chopping the heads off fish.

[Simon]

[Rik]

My antecedents used to chop heads off fish.

[colonelsun]

One of mine was held prisoner on a pirate ship because of his penchant for wearing women's dresses. He was due to be executed out at sea when the British suddenly staged a mini battle. The Brits were on a hiding to nothing and they slowly began to withdraw but my ancestor won the battle for them. The petticoat of his long silk dress caught fire causing the guy to bump into a cannon pre loaded with shot, unfortunately the cannon was pointed at the ship's hull. In the panic his still lit dress set fire to the wine barrels and the ship went up like a firework on Bonfire Night. My ancestor spent the rest of his life in the Bahamas married to a Winnifred Culport and one Benjamin Bellamy....obviously early swingers. And of course....he owned a dress shop....flame retardant hopefully.

[Rik]

So you're to blame for David then? 

[colonelsun]

Why not...i get the blame for everything else these days. My niece blames me for teaching her 3 year old how to swear. Not true....it was never true!! I taught the parrot first who passed it on to the kid.

[Rik]

Pieces of eight?