TV Channel Codes

Apologies, I never knew that it had been established he had ADD

All I know is there is alot of short code that makes now sense to me I1 for ITV1 indeed, surely sh*te1 is more accurate

Merry-Go-Round: Keep Up With The Times, 3:The Odyssey:1:The Wooden Horse

Thanks a million 7 Network for the link to the BBC catalogue. I'm surprised there would still be a record of past transmissions for this programme, especially as it's a schools programme, not some special event like 1982 Eurovision Song Contest in Harrogate.

Listed 1981 showings (re: BBC Catalogue):
19 Jan 1981 11:01-11:20 (BBC 1)
22 Jan 1981 10:10-10:30 (BBC 1)
28 Jan 1981 14:40-14:59 (BBC 2)
06 Mar 1981 10:35-10:54 (BBC 2)

Odd that they've listed The Wooden Horse as having been shown on 22 Jan 1981. That must have been the Thursday morning on which, for some mysterious reason, BBC1 showed Merry-Go-Round: Keep Up With The Times, 4:The Odyssey:2:The Cyclops instead of The Wooden Horse. Perhaps they've listed The Wooden Horse for 22 Jan 1981 as it was supposed to be on BBC1 that day, but wasn't.

So now I know the date and time it was rescheduled on BBC2: Friday 06 Mar 1981 10:35-10:54. Hence I now know when the other person came into the classroom, thereby resulting in my teacher talking to her, and saying what I thought sounded like " It's on B2 today ", thinking she meant "The Wooden Horse is on BBC2 today".



No davidlees, I definitely meant BBC2 (B2). From this catalogue reference http://catalogue.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/programme/ESB1284X you've seen it straight from the horse's mouth (nice pun!) that the rescheduled broadcast of The Wooden Horse on Friday 6 March 1981 was on BBC2, NOT BBC1. Well think about it. On Friday 6 March 1981, the BBC still had to show the full line-up of schools programmes scheduled for that date on BBC1. In order not to mess up that schedule, they had to put this rescheduled edition of Merry-Go-Round: The Wooden Horse on BBC2 instead.

I don't think Tumble Tower has ADD, its more something else on the autistic spectrum but thats not for here.

A fairly large axe, somewhere between the ears would be nice.

That's messy and not your style Nick.

Isn't it about time you re-charged that thunderbolt finger and reduced Tumble Dryer to a pile of ashes on the pavement. His carbon footprint would at least be reduced to only the shape of the "Size 10 Timberland" that stepped on his pile of ashes after your strike

So having given the channel name (properly for a change) you then waste five more keystrokes on the code-that-only-you-use?

(Shift-9-B-2-0)

I have an idea; If Tumble Tower posts in this topic again, just leave it until he can't be bothered posting to himself anymore and/or the topic is closed.

End of.

I must admit to finding this quite difficult to follow but I'm glad you found the BBC Programme Catalogue interesting.

I have another question. In 1981, when you were at school watching Merry-Go-Round: The Wooden Horse on BBC2 were you concentrating on the programme (this episode covered the 4 times table, the story of Odysseus conquering Troy etc.) or was your young mind already devising your channel code system?

Its clear that the events of 26 years ago have had some affect on your life, I mean you must spend quite a bit of time explaining your code system to friends and family, but I was just wondering if its had a greater affect than that, for example do you have problems with multiplying things by 4?

Finally, when you watched TV at school, did you sit on chairs or the floor?

Why would your teacher feel it necessary to tell a child late into class that it is on B2. Surely it wouldnt have mattered at all to the child what channel it was on and with a child coming into class I would have thought that the teacher would find it more important to get them sat down watching it then to explain what channel it was being shown on.

Please just lock the thread.

I swear and declare, I was concentrating on the programme. Having accidentally heard (in the background) what I believed to be "It's on B2 now", I did NOT suddenly think about coding BBC1 and ITV at the time. Nor did I think about coding the three channels of the time at home after school that Friday. It never occurred to me that one day I'd decide to devise a coding system for all available channels, and add to it during the course of my lifetime as new channels launched.

As I've said before, it was about five and a half years after the said event: autumn term 1986, by which time I was in the fourth year (year 10 in today's jargon), that I started my coding system on the basis of what I'd inadvertently heard whilst watching The Wooden Horse on 6 March 1981. After all that time, I still remembered what was said ( (sad), and thought that if B2 was supposed to mean BBC2, it seemed like a good idea at the time to code the other channels (by then there were four channels). As I've said before, I came up with ...

B1=BBC1
B2=BBC2
I1=ITV (regardless of region - Anglia, London, TVS, TSW, HTV etc.)
I2=Channel 4

... and another boy in my year didn't seem to like it very much. When I said "B1", he said "B BC 1". He was particularly confused by me using "I2" for Channel 4 at the time. Of course, I've since coded Channel 4 "C4" and most recently "4C", and use "I2" for the real ITV2 when it launched late 1998.


I can muliply by four, thanks very much. What made you doubt that? Is it just because Merry Go Round was covering the 4 x table in the first bit of that programme? Just for the record, I'd learned multiplication before seeing that series of Merry Go Round.

We sat on chairs.

Talking of schools programmes, BBC1 has just shown a trailer for a forthcoming programme on BBC2 : Saxondale. The background music used in that trailer was once used by the BBC as the signature tune for Encounter France, Rendez-Vous France, Encounter Spain, Descurbra Espana, Encounter Germany, Treffpunkt Deutschland, etc. What's the tune called?