So just as I realize that this is happening and think what a joke it is, I get an email from a woman working for the company that handles all licensing for the BBC in America thanking me for registering on its Motion Gallery website, offering to create a free account for me on her company's website, which will open up its full potential, asking me if there's specific footage I'm looking for, telling me she would love to learn more about the project I'm working on and letting me know she's looking forward to working on it with me; all this because I've been trying to find any visual record that might exist of Tony Hancock dressed as a budgerigar in a cage, one of the more enduring memories of my formative years.
I've spent much of the festive holiday season surfing YouTube for footage of English *comedians* I remember from my youth, all of whom turn out to be tortured miserable souls in private life who ended up killing themselves, not that that has anything to do with being reminded of Tony Hancock dressed as a budgerigar and becoming obsessed with finding the clip. I got as far as discovering it was part of a 1958 BBC Christmas With the Stars show (the clip's been removed from YouTube for copyright reasons), which set me off searching the BBC archives, which led to registering, which led to email from nice lady eager to work with me on my next project, which led to another Google search in which I was able to track down the clip on a torrent site, only to find I had to pay $1.99 for an unlimited three day download period and that MasterCard payments were not currently being accepted.
I know when I'm beaten. Out came the sewing kit, the new black bath towel and the penguin hat, and I started to make the swimming robe I promised Star Child for Christmas. Follow your north node and everything will come to you, as someone I once studied with always said.
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