Kids' TV and applied physics.

I'm going back to an old topic of this blog, children's TV programmes. Currently, I'm watching an awful lot of these, thanks to 3-year-old Sean, who is an avid watcher of CBeebies. Actually, he's a tyrannical watcher, especially at the weekend. God forbid anyone should change channel while 3rd & Bird is on.
 I'm an amused and cynical watcher of kids' TV, but I have to say that British-made kids' stuff is largely better than the well-intentioned mush that emanates from the States - for starters, it's generally more whimsical and anarchic, and the only way to appreciate a majority of it is to either a) be three years old or b) have ingested huge amounts of drugs.Some of the older stuff on CBBC is actually quite good - 'Sorry, Ive got no head' is genuinely funny, especially the Witchfinder General sketches. And Horrible Histories is a truly Reithian piece of broadcasting.
 However, watching one programme today invoked an idle scientific question: What happens when someone shrinks? The programme was 'Grandpa in my Pocket', which is not, as the name might suggest, a child using blackmail in order to keep their grandparent under control, but the adventures of an old bloke, played by the indestructible James Bolam, who shrinks whenever he puts his Shrinking Hat on. Obviously.
Now, I began thinking, what would happen to someone if they did shrink to about a tenth of their height? Anyone more familiar with physics and chemistry than me out there, please tell me if I'm right or wrong, but I suspect the results would probably be somewhat disastrous.
 Imagine: you've got a person of roughly 1 metre 75 cm, weighing perhaps 75-80 kilos, with an average temperature of 37 deg. c. Now, if we say that the act of shrinking leads to a concommitant loss of weight, it still leaves us with a significant problem - where does all the heat go? you have a body pumping out a constant temperature and radiating over a constant surface area of skin. Now, if you reduce the surface area suddenly, wouldn't the result be that Grandpa would either a) be instantly cooked to a crisp or b) due to his blood boiling, explode?
Hmmm. That wouldn't make good kids' telly.
Mind you, I am half fearful sometimes when watching In the Night Garden that Upsy Daisy will stamp on the Pontypines, and have to scrape them off her shoe.

I've been somewhat remiss of late, thanks to work commitments, so it seems only fitting that I return with an old favourite of this blog, namely children's tv programmes. The prompt for this has been the death of Oliver Postgate, creator of Bagpuss and The Clangers, amongst others.
Being a 70's kid, Bagpuss and The Clangers loom large in my childhood memory, right up there with Pipkins (It's.......................TIME! for a story), Crystal Tips and Alastair, Charlie the Cat and his mad musings on health and safety, Mary, Mungo and Midge, and of course, the titan that is Rainbow. Now, it should be pointed out that children's tv programmes at this period were downright weird and occasinally deeply disturbing. I know I've mentioned Roly Poly Fucking Olie before and The Bloody Weird World of Richard Scarry (involving a worm in a wheelchair), but these are American programmes and bloody idiotic by dint of being far too wholesome. And Crap. Home-grown British kids'tv however...weirdness abounds, alongside some deep political commentary and drugs references, or somewhat disturbing sexual connotations. Captain Pugwash, ALLEGEDLY (that's for the benefit of the lawyers), a tale of salty seafolk on the high seas, contained a Seaman Staines and Roger the Cabinboy. Fingerbobs, a programme involving really duff finger puppets, had a presenter who looked like he should have been confined to an institution that dealt with all kinds of strange...urges. Mary, mungo and midge? Searing indictment on the miserable solitude of modern life, where a single girl is trapped in a high-rise block of flats, with only a mouse and a dog as friends. Crystal Tips and Alastair? a pair of Acid-tripping freaks, giggling and chasing butterflies. Mr Benn? Well, what can you say better than it does itself: 'all of a sudden, the shopkeeper appeared and said, 'fancy a trip, mannn?' and Mr Benn found himself embarking from a UFO in the middle of some mushrooms while all the fairy people danced around singing about the Age of Aquarius...'
Bagpuss is different. Now, i thought I'd already mentioned this in an earlier post on this blog, but I'm damned if I can find it. Bagpuss is actually a communist dialectic. Let's look at the facts. It's set in a junk shop - an Edwardian junkshop. this is clearly symbolic of the collapse of capitalism. Bagpuss himself is a symbol of the Communist revolution. Why? Because 'When he wakes up, EVERYONE wakes up!' that is, all true revolutionaries heed the spirit of the time.
the mice? they are the GLORIOUS PROLETARIAT. Their song is 'we will fix it, we will mend it', that is, they shall rebuild all society into a fair and just place for all.
The frog is the minstrel, composing poems in celebration of Bagpuss' achievements, while Professor Yaffle is the intellectual, guiding with a wise wooden beak the works of the proletariat.
See? it works.
Don't ask me about Ragdolly Anna though. She's some kind of Commie Groupie.