Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2010 October 6

= October 6 =

The Further Adventures of Dr Syn - music
Listening to The Further Adventures of Dr Syn on BBC Radio 7. Does anyone know what the theme music is? It sounds familiar to me, but I can't put my finger on it. Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 00:37, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't recognize it, and online searching led to a result that didn't make any sense to me (Korngold's Captain Blood theme isn't it). To make it easier for others who might recognize it: Here's a link to BBC's page where you can click play and listen to the music (after some advertisement :-). ---Sluzzelin talk  22:32, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ok, I have to apologize to the source I dismissed (I can't locate it anymore, but yahoo answers gives it as well) . I had only compared the music to Captain Blood's main theme, but it does, in fact, sound quite a bit like the 30 second snippet of "Port Royal - Island of Magra - English and Pirate Ships" I listened to at classicsonline here. (What was annoying about the BBC clip, by the way, was hearing the music credits being given for the preceding Agatha Christie story we hadn't even heard, but not giving any music credits for the featured program TFAODS). ---Sluzzelin talk  07:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah here's the link I had originally found. It says: "Captain Blood (Main Theme)' or Suite 2 by Erich Wolfgang Korngold from music score for 1930's film Captain Blood" performed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Previn (from Previn conducts Korngold, track 19, "Captain Blood. Suite - Orchestrated by Hugo Friedhofer, Milan Roder, Heinz Roemheld - Scores reconstructed and assembled by Patrick Russ - 2. Sold into Slavery", on amazon's site I linked to). ---Sluzzelin talk  08:03, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Good work! Now I must do the rounds of the second-hand shops and find the Previn record. Thanks :) DuncanHill (talk) 10:06, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's definitely track 19 on the Previn (you can listen to a snippet on Amazon), it does sound exactly like the Romney Marshes look. DuncanHill (talk) 10:10, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to say I'm always a bit frustrated when credit is not given where due. Nothing on bbc for "korngold" + "syn". But the treasure hunt that was your question more than made up for my disappointment in BBC :-). ---Sluzzelin talk  10:20, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

80s song
Tried searching Google without much luck. We're looking for a song from the early to mid 80s, sang by a group, kind of pop rock sounding. With the lyrics of either "breakdown cruise" or "on a break down cruise." Any idea's? Or are we just imagining it. :) Dureo (talk) 02:43, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Kokomo. Bus stop (talk) 02:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Not 80's, but maybe Sea Cruise? -- Jayron  32  02:56, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Sting "We Work the Black Seam"
I know it's old, but it's still a good song with lyrics that confuse and puzzle me.

The first puzzlement, of course, comes from the chorus: "...deadly for 10,000 years is Carbon 14". I know this is a radioisotope of Carbon, used for dating things of a certain age range (10,000 years give or take, as I remember, is about right). But I didn't think Carbon 14 was deadly, and I didn't think it was a notable by-product of nuclear energy. Did I miss something?

I think the biggest problem with Carbon-14 is it taking the place of regular Carbon in the environment and it has an incredibly long half-life. Here is an interesting article: https://paulingblog.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/the-effects-of-carbon-14/

The puzzling one is "You can't exchange a 6-inch band for all the poisoned streams in Cumberland". I'm from the US, so this may be something obvious to someone in the UK that I'm just missing entirely. Is a "6-inch band" a coal mining term? Did Cumberland have a nuclear event I'm not aware of?

I've listened to the song for, what, 20 years now? I've decided it's time to just ask, since occasional net searches have not turned up a Variorum edition of Sting lyrics...

rc (talk) 03:12, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure I'd count on pop singers to have a scrupulosuly correct knowledge of how radioisotopes work. Coal mining is a very enviromentally degrading thing, though it is not terribly radioactive in any way.  The poisoning of streams is a problem with coal mining due to Acid mine drainage or from Tailings. Environmental_effects_of_coal covers a lot of this. -- Jayron  32  03:39, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sting was born and brought up in Wallsend, an area with a history of coal mining, so would doubtless know a lot of local specialist terminology. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:54, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

I am pretty sure 6 inch band refers to a ring which is a more lyrical way to say "you can't trade all the profits made by the mining companies for all the damaged waterways in cumberland" which doesn't rhyme very nicely —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.167.165.2 (talk) 08:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * What, you mean like a wedding ring? You'd have to have pretty big hands for a wedding ring to be 6" long. And I don't get the connection with profits. I'm scratching my head as to what "six inch band" refers to. --Viennese Waltz 08:53, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, coal mining in the UK was nationalised in 1947.
 * As someone from the North-East of England, I'd suggest the "six-inch band" is just "the black seam" itself. Coal appears in seams or bands running through the rock, and six inches would be a realistic width for such a seam.  Sting is lamenting the destruction of the British coal industry during the Thatcher years, and the emphasis on nuclear power as the alternative.  "All the poisoned streams in Cumberland" is surely a reference to radioactive contamination in Cumbria from the Sellafield nuclear power station.  I wondered whether it might be the Chernobyl disaster, which coincidentally contaminated some Cumbrian hill-farmers' flocks for years afterwards, but that wasn't until 1986, a year after The Dream of the Blue Turtles was released. The Windscale fire, although years earlier, was not forgotten by British anti-nuclear protesters of the early eighties; it was our Three Mile Island accident.  The Carbon-14 thing I think was just Sting getting his isotopes in a tangle.  Ka renjc 10:44, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable to me. Alansplodge (talk) 11:58, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, a "six inch band" will be a coal seam. Many seams are known by their width, and one might read sentences such as "the six-inch band was cut by the new shaft at a depth of 80 fathoms" in a mining history. It's perfectly possible that Sting was referring to a real seam - some were locally famous. DuncanHill (talk) 22:43, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Communards video
Can anybody identify the good-looking guy who stars in The Communards video You Are My World? Thank you.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 05:07, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

jim conroy
For Ruff Ruffman, how come they don't have someone else voicing the grandma and female characters, i know Jim conroy is ausom, just a curious question? 204.112.104.172 (talk) 12:36, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It's about money. I don't know anything about that particular show, but one reason that a single voice actor often performs multiple characters in an animated show is simple cost savings by the producers.  A union voice actor in the US gets paid for a minimum of 4 hours of work, no matter how much work is performed.  Suppose that a voice actor is hired to perform their part in a single episode of the show, and they can get it done in 45 minutes &mdash; the producer will surely choose to have that voice actor do the voices for as many other roles as possible, since the 4 hour "floor" means the additional acting is free to the producer.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:26, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Well he is a great voice actor, and if you want to help me by seing this episode, which desplays my point of Jim Conroy providing all the voices, here you go. www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkAByNoC8vo&feature=related The guy is ausom, but woulden't it be a good idea to get someone else to help, like a female voice actor for Grandma and Harriot? 204.112.104.172 (talk) 01:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You have identified the problem with having one voice actor do many, many voices. The quality of the show is lower.  This is yet another compromise of the kind that always has to happen "when art and commerce collide".  Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:57, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

MTV Germany
Why will MTV Germany become a digital pay TV channel in 2011? --84.61.131.141 (talk) 13:50, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * According to Dan Ligtvoet, managing director of MTV Networks for Germany, "With the move, we will achieve a more balanced spreading of our revenues in future. I expect more growth from this." -- k a i n a w &trade; 13:57, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Raj from Hell's Kitchen
In regards to Raj Brandston on Hell's Kitchen (U.S. season 8), what's the best term to describe him -- is it that he's delusional? I refer to his (apparently deeply sincere) comments that "no one else on my team has any chance of winning," when he's probably got one of the least likelihoods of winning.  DRosenbach  ( Talk 16:05, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Psychoanalyzing attention whores reality show contestants is probably the least productive use of intellectual ability out there. -- Jayron  32  16:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)


 * He is doing what used to be called "acting", but is now referred to as "reality television" when people who do not know how to act are hired to act like sleazy versions of themselves. If you met him long before he was attempting to act, he would very likely be entirely different than he is on the show - especially how he is perceived after the editors decide what video of him to keep and what to omit. --  k a i n a w &trade; 19:31, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, what he's doing is "non-union acting", since reality television show contestants are not members of the Screen Actors Guild or American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, and so that frees the shows producers from all sorts of entanglements that dealing with union actors usually entails. -- Jayron  32  19:48, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

What is this song?
It's a New Orleans / Jazz style song, and there is an aside where the singer (a man) says "I don't even like to think about it - sometimes I like to think about it". There is a reference in it to the Spanish Inquisition, as part of a list of undesirable things. What is it? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.189.106.4 (talk) 19:15, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds like "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" by Randy Newman. It's on Harps and Angels (2008). ---Sluzzelin talk  19:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yep, lyrics are here. --- cymru lass (hit me up)⁄(background check) 23:14, 6 October 2010 (UTC)