I'm a person who speaks and a person who thinks

[venta]

Someone help me... please.

I've just had one of those moments where you're halfway through describing something, and suddenly realise that all who are listening are looking at you funny, in that "she's lost it" sort of way.

So: a children's TV programme/film, in which hordes of <something> chant "Increase the vat!" to encourage <someone> to add more nasty things to a vat of <substance>.

I thought it might have been Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which does include a vat of nasty goo, and my memory of <someone> (holding a bat to add to the vat) does look a bit like the evil dude in WFRR. Google has not yet been any help, and the blankness of my colleagues on the subject seems to have ruled WFRR out as a likely candidate.

Any ideas, anyone ?

(It came up because there was a conversation about VAT going on, I started chanting "increase the VAT!". Disappointingly, google just turns up lots of dull commentary on VAT-increase if you search for the phrase.)

Comments

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Not WFRR, I'm pretty certain.

Sounds like any one of those kiddie gameshows where you get horribly messy and fall in vats of gunk, but I couldn't begin to tell you which one. If it's anything earlier than about 1985, or later than 1994, I wouldn't have been watching it. Does Google have anything useful under things like Crackerjack, Tiswas, Swap shop etc? Or, gods help us, Noel Edmonds House Party?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ye gods, I hope not. I think that the <something>s were cartoons, or puppets, or something, and that there weren't any humans involved, but this may be just my confusion with WFRR.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

It's not ringing any bells with game shows I've watched, and I'd like to think that I'd be able to identify this if it were. (A strange talent, but one that it's useful for a small number of people in a society to have. A very small number.)

In addition, Google cannot reveal even one hit for any of
"increase the vat" "game show"
"increase the vat" gameshow
"increase the vat" slime
"increase the vat" gunk
"increase the vat" gunge
"increase the vat" "get your own back"
...so I think you're OK.

Perhaps you dreamt it?

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Hmm. TV Cream doesn't show up anything useful...

[j4.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's WFRR, having done a couple of searches in the script... unfortunately I have no idea where it is from!

[diffrentcolours]

No idea about your vat, I just had to say "Mmm, Dubstar".

[venta.livejournal.com]

I had Disgraceful on in the car this morning :)

Which may well be contender for best-album-bought-this-year-but-not-released-this-year (currently fighting a live Squeeze album for the top spot).

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

<looks at venta funny>

[venta.livejournal.com]

<pokes bateleur in eye>

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

 

[augeas.livejournal.com]

That would be "Intensify the vat!" from an episode of "Dramarama" that had Patrick Troughton in it; something to do with the Grand Vamp and a broken window. No, don't ask.

[venta.livejournal.com]

!!
I have never knowingly heard of that program, let alone seen it.
I guess I must have wandered into a room when someone else was watching it, or summat. Wonder why it stuck so in my mind ?

[borusa.livejournal.com]

Extensive research (sic) suggests this was an episode called "The Young Person's Guide to Getting Their Ball Back", which is a great title if nothing else.

IMDB rocks.

Livejournal Knows All

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

but it often wishes it didn't...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Suddenly realise that all who are listening are looking at you funny, in that "she's lost it" sort of way

How's that different from the usual look?

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Most of us try to hide it out of politeness.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Has she found it again, now?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Which reminds me - d'you like Camembert ? The one in the cheese box in the fridge is "about right" in my opinion, but is a biological hazard in Andy's opinion.

I think I'd better dispose of it before he gets back at the weekend, but even I probably can't eat a whole one in that time.

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

WFRR has various scenes with a vat, but it's generally referred to as dip rather than 'the vat'.

Other than that, I am, as usual, of no value, whatsoever, other than as a great way of distributing, commas.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

<twitches>

Speaking as leader of the Grammar Nazi Group Marriage, I must insist that two of those commas are removed, with photographs of the disarmament process, within the next ten days.

I am willing to compromise on a futher one to be removed over the course of the next year.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Given that they're indicating pauses in speech, what would the correct punctuation be?

Maybe he, just speaks, like, William, Shatner?

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I offer this up for derision from, or/and the amusement of, the audience:

Other than that, I am (as usual!) of no value whatsoever, other than as a great way of distributing commas.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Where the pauses in a particular sentence become too complex to convey via commas alone I usually fall back on hyphens first and parentheses second. So:

Other than that I am - as usual - of no value whatsoever, other than as a great way of distributing commas.

[Note that I've also removed the first comma, since it didn't correspond to a pause the way I would speak the sentence !]

[venta.livejournal.com]

Note that I've also removed the first comma, since it didn't correspond to a pause the way I would speak the sentence !

Oh, I thought the whole point of this thread was to find punctuation illustrate the pauses which _Corpse_ had put in in places people wouldn't normally pause :)

If we just want standard punctuation, then surely "Other than that I am, as usual, of no value whatsoever other than as a great way of distributing commas." does fine - although it removes the relevance of the comma remark.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

It's slight thrown by the fact that I didn't read to the end of the original sentence: ... a great way of distributing, commas.
That last comma is clearly just wrong, and it may well be this one that lnfykins was originally referring. The other commas being, although peculiar, not absolutely, 100% out of order.

(Although she did make reference to a second comma she'd like culled. But now I don't know which that is!)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Between "value" and "whatsoever", assuming rudimentary non-crapness.

[venta.livejournal.com]

The comma between "that" and "I" is common but, I believe, superfluous and incorrect.

By some arbitrary set of rules someone invented some years ago, of course. Commas are more of an art form than a science in my book :)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

The reason I don't mind it here is that it removes an ambiguity of syntax that otherwise remains until the end of the sentence. Which is some way off at the time.

Compare: "Other than that I am, as usual, of no value whatsoever other than as a great way of distributing commas, there's nothing wrong with me".

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup, fair point.

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

Had I not been attempting humour, I might have written:

Other than that I am, as usual, of no value whatsoever; other than as a great way of distributing commas.

I'm old fashioned in that respect.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Eew.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I remember my mum reading out to me, ages ago, part of an interview with a writer of "romantic fiction". Said writer was attempting to defend herself against the charge that what she was writing was basically porn, but under a polite name.

She claimed that it wasn't porn, because it had semi-colons in. (I hope this was meant humorously, but was never sure). This has, however, become a metric of porn-ness ever since, so I'm pleased to see a ; cropping up here every now and again.

I like semi-colons.

[narenek.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it wasn't one of those times when you got home to find that rather than kids TV you were being subjected to live coverage of the budget. The chant of "Increase the vat!" might have been an answer to some rhetorical question by Nigel Lawson on what he should do with Fuel Bills.