When I was a kid there used to be a little slot before the evening news, some time around 5.45, which was occupied by a brief animation. My favourite and perhaps the best-known of these was The Magic Roundabout. It was supposedly for small children but in fact had a very adult strain of humour and some sophisticated characters: Brian the somewhat bitter snail, the happy-go-lucky Mr Rusty, the phlegmatic Dougal, the fulsome Ermintrude – and Florence who made all their problems go away. And sometimes one of these characters would look directly at the camera and say ‘Waiting for the news, are you?’ It was very funny.
The Magic Roundabout was originally in French and was rendered into English not by a process of translation but by making something up which seemed to fit the pictures:
But this evening we are not so much waiting for the news as waiting for the new – ie the New Year. And we are not allowed to watch TV, even for the few minutes when Big Ben is on, because Mark is convinced that TV detectorists are waiting to swoop down on unsuspecting unlicensed watchers and discombobulate them, even at this time of year. So we shall be forced to watch Big Ben on the radio.
I wish all my readers a very happy 2016. Thank you all for reading and commenting and I look forward to chatting with you in the coming year.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 