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The department of discontinued lines
It's eerie how current old shows can appear. Take this quote from an episode of The Avengers (the British spy series, not the Marvel superheroes) I saw the other day...
"The department of discontinued lines! That's what they call this place. Discontinued lines... relics of a bygone age, the glorious age! A machine was a thing of joy then, built to last a man's lifetime. Now it's out of date before it's left the assembly line."
Fits perfectly with how modern gadgets aren't built to last anymore, right? Except this is from a show first broadcast in the sixties.
It's like watching Yes, Minister - despite it dating from the Thatcher era, it looks just like modern government. I recall watching through it at university, and one of the first few episodes from 1980 was about introducing a new National Integrated Database... which is exactly what the then-Labour government of 2005 had just announced with great fanfare.
"The department of discontinued lines! That's what they call this place. Discontinued lines... relics of a bygone age, the glorious age! A machine was a thing of joy then, built to last a man's lifetime. Now it's out of date before it's left the assembly line."
Fits perfectly with how modern gadgets aren't built to last anymore, right? Except this is from a show first broadcast in the sixties.
It's like watching Yes, Minister - despite it dating from the Thatcher era, it looks just like modern government. I recall watching through it at university, and one of the first few episodes from 1980 was about introducing a new National Integrated Database... which is exactly what the then-Labour government of 2005 had just announced with great fanfare.