The Boiled Egg of Infinity

Each day in February the BBC news site is commemorating that great British institution, the Public Information Film. Made to inform children about various aspects of modern life the films ranged from amusing, to cheesy, to outright chilling and they featured various celebrities (well, of the time, anyway) providing helpful hints on how not to set yourself on fire/get hit by a bus/run into an industrial grinder etc etc. Some were more effective than others, but they have a tremendous nostalgia value to them and I don’t think you’ll find an adult in Britain nowadays that doesn’t remember at least one from their childhood.

I do remember them being on TV when I was a kid, they always showed them in the ad breaks or before a favourite show came on. However I had forgotten about this one, called “Lonely Water”. Narrated by Donald Pleasance it’s a terrifying video about the dangers of messing about near water. The BBC page I just linked to has the video file on it: go have a look, but make sure you have the light on. This film was definitely made with a “terrify the little bastards into obeying” mentality.

By way of an explanation of todays title, every time I watch Alien (a film that still scares the bejabbers out of me now as much as it did when I first saw it as a mere slip of a boy) I like to watch some Next Generation immediately after. What can I say? I just find Jean-Luc Picard intensely reassuring. He’s nice, calm, would give you tea and he has a ship with enough guns to level a planet. Take that you facehugging, acid spitting bastards! *ahem* Anyway suffice to say, mister Pleasance’s turn as the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water seems to have had a similar effect.

And yes, I am a wuss.