Remote excess

Whatever’s happening in Najaf today, it’s never going to be half as frightening as South Africa. IOL tells of a newsreader trying to interview an on-the-spot reporter while, unbeknown to her, the latter is being robbed by a gunman:

As Katopodis crossed live to Thaw at the first take, his cellphone stayed on – with inaudible voices coming through – but no answer from Thaw.

At the second take – Katopodis continued with the bulletin saying she would cross back to Thaw later.

When the talk show host John Robbie commented that he “hoped Thaw was not being mugged”, little did he know that his colleague was in fact negotiating with an armed robber in the process of carrying out the mugging.

[…]

“I tried to negotiate with him that I was from 702 and that we were live on the radio but he ignored my plea,” [said Thaw].

My first joyful encounter of this kind came during a 1995 CU-SeeMe video-conferenced job interview with a university faculty based in a fishing port. It was a very hot summer and the techies’ room was unbearable, so I figured that, since I’d be sitting behind a desk, I could get away with jacket and tie upstairs and some rather interesting Hawaiian shorts down below.

The connection was fine, but it soon became apparent that, while the enemy could hear everything I said, the only sound that emanating from their huddled faces was going to be that of several thousand exceptionally hungry seagulls.

Drunk J it was who saved the day, if not my job: staggering in, completely unaware of what was going on, he saw a camera running, and, as was his wont, lowered his equally exotic trunks and presented his posterior end for remote inspection. Things just got ridiculous after that.

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Published
Last updated 12/08/2004

This post pre-dates my organ-grinding days, and may be imported from elsewhere.

Kaleboel (4307):

Natural history (512): Natural history is the research and study of organisms including animals, fungi and plants in their environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study.


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