back to article Fear the Embarrassing Bodies webcam

Some of my colleagues get writer's block. I suffer from reader's block. I may have a mild form of dyslexia or it may be due to having a very short attention ... you know, whatever. Today, I am unable to reach the end of the following sentence without forgetting how it started. You have a go... A multi-tiered, hybrid approach …

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  1. Jack Project

    Sorry mate, didnt really read the article but thanks for the Blackadder Youtube marathon I'm now on to see me through to beer o'clock.

  2. John P
    Coffee/keyboard

    "and for an appalled moment I thought he was directing the patient to heave his bristling pink mansack onto his own flatbed scanner."

    Reading that almost resulted in my lunch meeting my monitor. Keep it up Alistair, your posts never fail to amuse.

  3. Pen-y-gors

    What kind of crazed saddo...

    thinks that the best way to get a reliable diagnosis of a medical problem is to wave the relevant parts at a webcam for transmission on live TV rather than just making an appintment to go and see their friendly local GP? For all its faults, the NHS is still pretty good at diagnosing the cause of swollen testicles, and it saves the rest of us having nightmares while channel hopping.

    1. Thomas 4
      Mushroom

      Re: What kind of crazed saddo...

      Someone that's afraid of the answers their GP will give them. Someone that can't sleep for worrying about what's happening to them. Someone dreading being told they might have the Big C.

      An appointment over a webcam makes the process seem more detached, like it's happening to someone else. If it results in a "crazed saddo" getting the answers they desperately need and maybe giving them the courage and motivation they need to get further treatment, the process is worthwhile.

      Embarassing Bodies is not a fucking freakshow. That illness you're laughing your ass off about? That's a real person that's having it happen to them *right now*. My job would be a lot easier if people stopped taking the piss out of the patients I see.

      1. Steve 13
        WTF?

        Re: What kind of crazed saddo...

        If they didn't go on national television to air their problems, then nobody would be laughing at them!

        1. TeeCee Gold badge
          WTF?

          Re: What kind of crazed saddo...

          I'm having difficulty reconciling "I'm really embarrassed about this and am having great difficulty even in talking about it" and "I'll happily video my diseased bits for broadcast to the entire audience of Channel 4" as the views of any one person.

        2. Anonymous Custard

          Re: What kind of crazed saddo...

          That's the next step toward the gutter - Embarassing bodies meets Jeremy Kyle...

      2. JimC

        Re: not a freakshow

        mate, a freakshow is *exactly* what it is. And to my mind its also a damn disgrace on our society, firstly that people are willing to broadcast the freakshow, and secondly that people watch it.

      3. Why Not?
        Paris Hilton

        Re: What kind of crazed saddo...

        I would almost agree with you if it didn't pick the you know 'Embarrassing' illnesses. Clue is in the title. If it was non stop I have a lump on my neck/leg etc then their ratings would be poor. Strangely lumps on boobs or Balls seem very popular, scratchy fanny seems to feature as well.

        Its exploitation TV, I feel sorry for your customers but theirs are Jeremy Kyle & Big brother wannabes getting their bits out so we can have vicarious thrill / giggle.

        Paris because I'm sure she would get her kit off for publicity

      4. paulll
        Happy

        Re: What kind of crazed saddo...

        "My job would be a lot easier if people stopped taking the piss out of the patients I see."

        Conversely, my job's often made much easier by having patients catheterised. Swings and roundabouts, eh?

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What kind of crazed saddo...

        "My job would be a lot easier if people stopped taking the piss out of the patients I see."

        Well, if you will insist they dress up in Andy-Pandy gear then this kind of thing is going to happen.

  4. Dr_N
    Stop

    It's like rubber necking...

    It's morally wrong, don't watch, just look away.

    1. John Colman
      Trollface

      Re: It's like rubber necking...

      Please refer to Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt with issues around morality

      1. Frankee Llonnygog

        Re: It's like rubber necking...

        Confused - is that where Bill G said it's OK not to pay taxes if you have enormous balls? Or everything Eric Schmidt has ever said, which can be summed up as, enormous balls.

        1. peyton?

          Re: It's like rubber necking...

          I think John is alluding to the idea that "there is no law against it".

  5. Ugotta B. Kiddingme
    Pint

    amusing AND educational

    I had almost completely forgotten about Max Headroom. Will have to add that to the Netflix queue along with Blackadder. Excellent as always.

  6. Anonymous Custard
    Pint

    House!

    A multi-tiered, hybrid approach that differentiates between infrastructure and service-level competition can drive an optimum balance between national economic interests, free-market economics and a healthy telecommunications industry, that is able to provide affordable leading edge ICT services so necessary for economies going forward.

    That's a full house on my bullshit buzzword bingo card...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Mushroom

      Re: House!

      That's a nuclear event on the bullshit bingo charts - which is only a just and fitting punishment for anybody who allows such a sentence to be created.

    2. Evil Auditor Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: House!

      A that and can an and a that is to so for going.

      ...stripped off all the buzzword bullshit. And even that doesn't make less sense.

    3. Red Bren
      Coat

      Re: House!

      What ever happened to Hugh Lawrie after Blackadder?

      1. Archimedes_Circle

        Re: House!

        He ended up in America, playing Gregory House. Also did "A bit of 'fry and laurie'" I believe.

    4. Steven Roper

      Re: House!

      After careful consideration and buzzword elimination, here's what I translated out of that sentence:

      The people who maintain the cables and poles should be a separate bunch to the ones who sell services delivered over those cables and poles. The ownership of the cables and poles should be retained by the government, while the service delivery should be provided by private enterprise. This way a balance can be maintained between government control of the wires and the ability of the free market to make a buck.

  7. Robert Carnegie Silver badge

    "Bug Jack Barron"

    predicted it earlier; some of it, anyway. Come to think, the problem of getting and affording medical treatment is a big theme in the book. Showing yourself to people over videophone... I don't exactly remember.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Big testicles you say?

    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=461_1360105026 (NSFW if you hadn't guessed)

    1. Frankee Llonnygog

      Re: Big testicles you say?

      After reading that article, I'm not clicking on any URL that contains the words 'live' and 'leak'

    2. Khaptain Silver badge

      Re: Big testicles you say?

      This video gives a whole new meaning to "One swift kick to the balls".

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Google Goggles

    I see a use for those specs now, download a diagnosis app from the Play store, whip out ur nads have a good look and hey presto Mr G will tell you what's wrong and give you directions to the nearest clinic telling all your friends where you are in the process.

  10. TeeCee Gold badge
    Coat

    "...video latency problems...."

    I hear that they wanted to use Apple's video chat system to avoid that, but nobody's written the BollockTime app yet.

  11. Tanuki
    Thumb Up

    Max Headroom and "Dr. Duncan's Video Symptom Show" was more like 20 years into the future, not 20 minutes like they claimed.

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      Dr. Duncan's Video Symptom Show

      I can still sing the jingle. It was the kind of thing Kenny Everett might have produced.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Coffee/keyboard

    "One of the doctors is described as a "penis expert". I can’t begin to imagine how disappointed his mum must have felt when he proudly showed off his new business cards."

    I can't stop laughing at that imagined scene - oh my!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Surely the 'Dick Doctor'?

  13. Crisp

    Penis Expert Business Cards

    If you rub them they turn into a postcard!

  14. Tom 35

    Bingo!

    A multi-tiered, hybrid approach that differentiates between infrastructure and service-level competition can drive an optimum balance between national economic interests, free-market economics and a healthy telecommunications industry, that is able to provide affordable leading edge...

    What do I get for a full card?

  15. Tascam Holiday

    Pink Pancakes

    "and for an appalled moment I thought he was directing the patient to heave his bristling pink mansack onto his own flatbed scanner."

    Now why did this make me think of Mick Hucknall...?

  16. Number6

    BYOD?

    In this context, would that be Bring Your Own Dongle?

  17. ecofeco Silver badge
    Trollface

    The synergistic repurposing the changing paradigm syndrome

    RUN! RUN NOW!

  18. getHandle
    Happy

    Best article so far

    Keep it up Mr Dabbs, so to speak...

  19. ian 22

    You, sir, ...

    ... owe me a tablet, shirt, and trousers as I have shot red wine (an unassuming Barolo, 2001) out my nose whilst perusing your latest effort. Well done sir.

    However, returning to the original question (I am NOT easily distracted, although I am easily amused), clearly God intended high speed Internet for the viewing of pr0n, although no doubt some misguided folk see it as a business opportunity. One example is the outsourcing of niche services, i.e. conversion of large photos (bit maps) to smaller ones with minimal degradation, a service of interest to the constabulary. Many such niches in the Internet ecosystem can be envisioned, leading either to a fragmentation of the Web, or a diversification, depending on your penchant for glasses half full or half empty.

  20. Ernie Mercer
    Unhappy

    I wish I could see it in the US, but it's "not available in your area."

  21. Decade
    Childcatcher

    Shocking lack of imagination

    I've frequently been annoyed by people who say that they can't imagine needing faster broadband because Netflix doesn't take any more than 6 Mbps. (Well, it now takes 12 Mbps in 3D Super HD, and it's bound to only go up.) So, the market is mostly made up of slow connections, and the major ISPs can point to low adoption as proving low demand instead of ridiculously high prices.

    But the real crime is the lack of upload. Cisco had a very pretty networked webcam that flopped hard, mostly because Cisco sucks at the consumer market, but also because it required 1.5 Mbps upload for the 720p version and 3.5 Mbps for 1080p. Nobody on DSL has that kind of upload speed.

    Not to mention all the other ideas that have to be shelved because speeds are just too low.

    1. ElNumbre

      Re: Shocking lack of imagination

      I suspect with this telly programme, they're using Skype, which only serves to take a mediocre image and mangle it into some kind of mushy 8 bit representation of a gonad.

      They should move to Google Hangouts (pun co-incidental) which seems to do a much better job of actually getting a stable, decent audio and video feed from one place to another. Or Vidyo which from testing works great on the piss-thin DSL links provided by the UK's "favorite" telco.

  22. shrdlu
    FAIL

    A multi-tiered, hybrid approach that differentiates...............zzzzzzz

    Any half-way competent English teacher, or hack, would realise that the "sentence" has no subject although it has far, far too many adjectives.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A multi-tiered, hybrid approach that differentiates...............zzzzzzz

      Isn't the subject the 'multi-tiered, hybrid approach'?

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