Telepocalypse

Brittle bones

I’ll let you absorb this snippet from BBC News:

The crew of a fishing boat blocked emergency radio frequencies for hours as they watched an erotic film.

The crew of the Blyth-based Oceania accidentally left their radio switched to the emergency channel on Thursday as they were off the North East coast.

They then settled down to watch the film Crash on a TV which was next to the radio - not realising it was being broadcast over a 30-mile radius.

[…]

Humber Coastguard said it was lucky the incident happened during a quiet period and at night. A spokesman also said it was fortunate that sea conditions were relatively calm.

He said: “This should serve as a warning to others to be careful with their emergency radio switches.”

The skipper of the Oceania, George Mair, said he had apologised for the error. He said he had inadvertently jammed a clock radio into the switch that opened the emergency radio channel.

You mean the emergency system is so brittle that one nudged switch takes out the whole thing! Lucky there’s aren’t any malevolent forces around these days that would want to disrupt radio networks on purpose.

I think Bob had something to say about this 19th-century radio technology…