Originally posted by Stillhomewardbound
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If I can invite Vile Consort and Eine thingamy bob to actually visit the link I've posted and peruse that site, in depth, then you might get a better sense of what one is grieving for.
Nowhere, on any one site was there such a versatility of television studios. From the esteemed NO.1 studio, equal to a medium sized film stage, down to the mini-studios occupied by the likes of the weather and continuity departments. Truly, it was unique, and we are not talking here a sentimentality about some bricks and mortar, because there does come a point where something special is built up and it achieves a being in a physical sense.
It's an argument, alas, that I am making too late in the day. The letters B-B-C are merely an affixable label, now. Yes, you can slap it on a televisual waste bin, but what difference does that make. It was that which went on within the walls of Television Centre that made it the special place it was.
There was such an amazing concentration of talent there, and, as Alan Bennett has noted, he could delivera script to Innes Lloyd of a morning and six week's later have been sat at home of an evening watching his words rendered as a dramatic reality.
Well, that was only possible because of a unique, bespoke factory that rested close by the A40 in West London. Alas, it will go the way now of other notable, one time greats.
Indeed, isn't it on that same carriageway that you'll pass by the old Hoover building? Now backed by a supermarket, though I haven't a clue which supermarket, be it Tescos, Sainsburys or the Co-OP. Anyway, it's just a supermarket now, and yet, so successful and dependable did Hoover become in the UK & Ireland, that the very name entered our lexicon as a generic term for vacumning. Literally, it was unbeatable. They even had the slogan to prove it ... It beats, as it sweeps, as it cleans.
You see, supermarkets are only traders of other producers' commodities, whereas it was the ingenuity and industry behind the Hoover facade on the A40 that produced an unbeatable product. That's why we should lament the decommissioning of Television Centre. Great things were made here. Moments that touched us deeply, kept us laughing through dark days and provided us with broadcasting that reflected and gave us an inherent sense of who we were as a people.
You don't get that from a supermarket. You don't get that from a generic product with a BBC tag slapped on the front.
It's what went on behind the facade that mattered and now that's gone and our culture will be the poorer for it.
Nowhere, on any one site was there such a versatility of television studios. From the esteemed NO.1 studio, equal to a medium sized film stage, down to the mini-studios occupied by the likes of the weather and continuity departments. Truly, it was unique, and we are not talking here a sentimentality about some bricks and mortar, because there does come a point where something special is built up and it achieves a being in a physical sense.
It's an argument, alas, that I am making too late in the day. The letters B-B-C are merely an affixable label, now. Yes, you can slap it on a televisual waste bin, but what difference does that make. It was that which went on within the walls of Television Centre that made it the special place it was.
There was such an amazing concentration of talent there, and, as Alan Bennett has noted, he could delivera script to Innes Lloyd of a morning and six week's later have been sat at home of an evening watching his words rendered as a dramatic reality.
Well, that was only possible because of a unique, bespoke factory that rested close by the A40 in West London. Alas, it will go the way now of other notable, one time greats.
Indeed, isn't it on that same carriageway that you'll pass by the old Hoover building? Now backed by a supermarket, though I haven't a clue which supermarket, be it Tescos, Sainsburys or the Co-OP. Anyway, it's just a supermarket now, and yet, so successful and dependable did Hoover become in the UK & Ireland, that the very name entered our lexicon as a generic term for vacumning. Literally, it was unbeatable. They even had the slogan to prove it ... It beats, as it sweeps, as it cleans.
You see, supermarkets are only traders of other producers' commodities, whereas it was the ingenuity and industry behind the Hoover facade on the A40 that produced an unbeatable product. That's why we should lament the decommissioning of Television Centre. Great things were made here. Moments that touched us deeply, kept us laughing through dark days and provided us with broadcasting that reflected and gave us an inherent sense of who we were as a people.
You don't get that from a supermarket. You don't get that from a generic product with a BBC tag slapped on the front.
It's what went on behind the facade that mattered and now that's gone and our culture will be the poorer for it.
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