Of testcards and childhood memories

As we were sitting in the classroom this morning waiting for Angela Davies to teach us 'proper Japanese' Charlie, Chris and I were having a little chat about this and that and eventually the conversation reached British testcards (only god knows why) . That really stirred up old memories in me as I used to stay up on weekends to watch telly til closedown. Yeah, there was a time, once upon a time, called the 80's, when TV wasn't 24/7, when there was no internet and computers were something for geeks. And the new generation is missing all that...
So, Britain's BBC had a closedown as well, apparently until 1997 (while the Austrian 'media giants' of ORF - the Austrian state broadcasting company - had decided to go 24/7 already in, I think it was 1992). What came for some time after the TV station had gone off air was the so-called testcard, which is known in Austria as 'Testbild' (test picture).

Austrian 'Testbild'

The rest of Angela's lesson was thrilling as ever and after it I went to work - where Mike didn't turn up and so I had to do his job instead of doing my usual job. It kept me quite busy - and on top of all we had 40% more orders than on an average Monday. And I had a tummy-ache that was killing me... and Clare told me that it'd be unlikely that I can buy my new laptop via the company to save the 50 Pounds VAT because they already had some tax problems. And tomorrow the library's closed so I can't access the Internet at all. When will this losing streak end?! But it still could be worse, really!