Idiots

[fanf]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/3930739.stm

Everyone please tell them how irritating this is, please. customer.responses@centraltrains.co.uk

Comments

[sshi.livejournal.com]

aargh, it's the revenge of the dentist's waiting room brainmush...

[songster.livejournal.com]

Hum. Not sure how this affects you - if you don't want to watch it, don't. Unless they're proposing to make it non-switch-offable, which given they're offering a range of channels seems unlikely.

Also, given the range of channels, they must be using headphones for sound - so again it shouldn't bother you if you choose not to watch.

My only beef would be that I don't believe it's free, they'll claw the money back somehow.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

I doubt it will have a composite video line in so I can watch a DVD from my computer, though.

[mobbsy.livejournal.com]

The article says "The company said it could extend the 21-inch screens to all its 323 trains."

That suggests that it's big screens in the middle of the aisle, not individual screens, hence not-switch-offable. They're not offering a choice, they're offering a "range of news and sports programmes", which suggests to me that they're just putting on something like Sky News with custom ads.

I find having a flickering TV in the corner of my vision to be quite distracting if I'm trying to read. It's not the first anyway, they've got TVs on the Heathrow Express.

[songster.livejournal.com]

Hum - I did interpret it as individual screens. I didn't focus on the subtle difference between a range of programmes and a range of channels - which latter would imply individual screens.

[sshi.livejournal.com]

my grump with the dentist's waiting room one is that it is non-switch-offable and non-channel-changeable, so I always seem to end up enduring three-quarters of an hour of crappy American soaps.
the sound is always way up, as well, just for the grannies-with-hearing-aids...

[techiebabe.livejournal.com]

apart from anything else, it's not the first - you get some version of news24 on the heathrow express, don't you?

[(Anonymous)]

I mailed them when I first heard about this and got a reply:

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=83oelxre7v.fsf%40chiark.greenend.org.uk

(S)