- by Owen Morton
Hello everybody (as my role model, Zippy from Rainbow, puts it so eloquently). I am now sitting in Vanbrugh bar (well, okay, technically, I am now sitting in the computer room copying this up, but when it was originally written, there I was, all alone on that table in the corner). As any fool who has ever been to York University knows, Vanbrugh is the college at the dead centre of campus. If you’re on campus, you always seem to end up there.
One could, however, ask what it is that I have found to inspire me in Vanbrugh bar to write about. It’s not the less than stunning view from the windows, from which I all can see is a couple of bits of covered walkway. Nor is it the annoying people from my seminar group who are sitting across the bar opposite me, scribbling away as if they actually care about their degrees. Nor is it even the revolting over-sugary substance served at the cafeteria, its sale at such a location giving the rather erroneous impression that it can be described as ‘food’. No, today’s subject for discussion is the fabled YSTV.
YSTV stands for York Student TeleVision, in case you either didn’t know or have been at this university for a while and not been able to work it out. There are numerous televisions across campus showing this magical channel, all of them in helpfully prominent positions which suggests that people are actually interested in watching it. Nothing could be further from the truth. YSTV is probably the most ridiculed institution at this university, and that – considering the frequent insults levelled at History students (completely unjustly, I might add) – is really saying something.
The problem with YSTV is not that it’s endearingly bad, like some of my favourite things (eg. He-Man). It’s that it never shows anything. I remember in my first year, it would show an episode of the Simpsons at 6pm, which was, admittedly, an attempt to do something (never mind that as far as I have ever been able to make out, there are no speakers attached to any of these televisions, which renders the watching process pretty useless – though, in the case of the Simpsons, marginally more enjoyable). The rest of the time on YSTV was spent showing a clock for 24 hours (except, of course, those 20 minutes reserved for the Simpsons), which was admittedly enthralling, but perhaps not what one expects or indeed hopes for when watching television.
In my second year, YSTV reached its zenith. It retained the scheduling it had had in the first year, with the omission of the Simpsons. In essence, therefore, what we had with YSTV was a big, pointless, TV-shaped clock hung up in various prominent places all over campus. Quite what they thought they were doing, I don’t know. Okay, ‘The Clock Show’ might have had a loyal audience somewhere, but I for one never saw hordes of people gathered round watching it intently. This sorry state of affairs continued for a good term into my third year, until someone (who evidently felt just as irate, if not more so, about this than I do) wrote a letter to York Vision, one of our student newspapers, complaining about YSTV’s scheduling.
And all this leads me to my current position in Vanbrugh bar, sitting opposite a television showing YSTV. It should be noted that YSTV has evidently been stung into action by the afore-mentioned letter in Vision. For the last half hour while writing this, I’ve been glancing up every now and again, and I’ve not yet caught sight of the clock that once haunted me so. No, YSTV has clearly upgraded. Every five seconds or so the picture changes!! Every time, it shows white writing on a black background (which sounds disturbingly familiar, for some reason), with helpful captions like,
“This is YSTV. All day, every day.”
“YSTV”
“Advertise your society here! For free!! What are you waiting for?”
“YSTV week – a round up of the week’s news, on campus and off – Live, Thursday, 7pm, and requested at the weekend”
“BONA DICTA – Heated pre-UGM political discussion – Live: UGM Tuesdays, 7pm”
“Solipsism”
“The Music Show – The latest news from the Music Scene”
“Small screen – non-UGM Tuesdays, 7pm”
“Hey dude! I’m on YSTV! Why aren’t you?”
All right, so clearly some of those are advertising programmes that are on YSTV. It looks like its period of activity is on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm. I wouldn’t know, to be fair – I’m never on campus at that kind of time, having better things to do. I’m not sure how good these programmes are, given the lack of speakers on the televisions, but that’s another matter. I’m also unsure as to what “Solipsism” refers to. As to the statement “This is YSTV. All day, every day”, all I can say is that this is indeed true, and not at all appreciated.
Before I finish, I’d like to point out that YSTV has a budget of £6000 a year. And they spend it on pointless captions flashing up on their screens 24 hours a day? Evidently, they will grow up to be very successful TV executives.