Leaked Emails: Twenty Twelve's 'clock-up'
Post categories: Twenty Twelve,Ìýbbc four
| 12:59 UK time, Wednesday, 16 March 2011
If you watched Twenty Twelve on Monday night, you will have seen the fictional Olympic clock breaking down.
Well, it might've felt like a case of strife imitating art when the real Olympic clock conked out less than 24 hours after being unveiled this week. People often say, 'you couldn't write it,' but John Morton did. Spooky!
How did our Twenty Twelve Olympic Deliverance Committee deal with the crisis? Emails. Lots of emails...
From: Ian Fletcher
To: Nick Jowett; Graham Hitchins; Kay Hope; Siobhan Sharpe
Subject: Twenty Twelve clock
So, '500 day day' has presented us with an exciting challenge, insofar as that the 2012 countdown clock has apparently stopped working. Does anyone know who our maintenance partners are for this sort of thing?
From: Graham Hitchins
To: Ian Fletcher; Nick Jowett; Kay Hope; Siobhan Sharpe
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day.
From: Ian Fletcher
To: Graham Hitchins; Nick Jowett; Kay Hope; Siobhan Sharpe
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
Thanks for that incredibly helpful platitude, Graham. However, since this particular clock counts down to the 2012 Olympics and it has stopped on '500 days, 7 hours six minutes and 56 seconds', which is several hours ago, it will, in fact, never 'tell the right time' ever again.
From: Nick Jowett
To: Ian Fletcher; Graham Hitchins; Kay Hope; Siobhan Sharpe
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
Of course a 'stopped' 24 HOUR clock would only tell the right time once a day. That's just one of the reasons I refuse to use them.
From: Ian Fletcher
To: Nick Jowett; Graham Hitchins; Kay Hope; Siobhan Sharpe
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
OK - New rule. Only respond to emails if you actually have something productive to bring to the table.
From: Graham Hitchins
To: Ian Fletcher; Nick Jowett; Kay Hope; Siobhan Sharpe
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
I could bring a new clock to the table - there's one in my desk drawer. LOL
From: Ian Fletcher
To: Graham Hitchins; Nick Jowett; Kay Hope; Siobhan Sharpe
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
Graham, that's precisely the sort of thing I'm talking about.
From: Siobhan Sharpe
To: Ian Fletcher; Graham Hitchins; Nick Jowett; Kay Hope
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
I think there's a way to spin this. Could we not say that the clock is designed to stop periodically to remind us that, in any race, it is important to pause and refocus our energies before continuing with renewed vigour?
From: Ian Fletcher
To: Siobhan Sharpe; Graham Hitchins; Nick Jowett; Kay Hope
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
Thanks for your input Siobhan, but I'm not sure that the idea of pausing mid-race is entirely compatible with the traditional image of Olympics sports. I'm pretty sure Colin Jackson never did that.
From: Siobhan Sharpe
To: Ian Fletcher; Graham Hitchins; Nick Jowett; Kay Hope
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
Who's Colin Jackson?
From: Ian Fletcher
To: Siobhan Sharpe; Graham Hitchins; Nick Jowett; Kay Hope
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
So, apparently the clock has started working again. Thank you all for what I will loosely call your help.
From: Nick Jowett
To: Ian Fletcher; Siobhan Sharpe; Graham Hitchins; Kay Hope
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
See. Like I always say - if you ignore a problem long enough it usually goes away.
From: Ian Fletcher
To: Nick Jowett; Siobhan Sharpe; Graham Hitchins; Kay Hope
Subject: RE: Twenty Twelve clock
A simple glance at the names on my phone's extension list tells me otherwise. Good night.
The Twenty Twelve emails were written by Larry Rickard.
More from Twenty Twelve:
- Twenty Twelve on Twitter: They're in charge of the biggest show on earth - so how difficult can Twitter be?
- Watch interviews with Hugh Bonneville and Jessica Hynes.
- Find out more about the characters from Twenty Twelve.
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Twenty Twelve continues on Â鶹Éç Four every Monday evening at 10pm.
Comment number 1.
At 16th Mar 2011, 21five wrote:"People often say, 'you couldn't write it,' but John Morton did."
Ah yes, he may have written Twenty Twelve, but I suspect John Clarke and Ross Stephenson did a better job in Australia, some 13 years earlier.
Has he returned the DVDs of The Games they loaned him yet?
- Miles.
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Comment number 2.
At 17th Mar 2011, Simon wrote:"People often say, 'you couldn't write it,' but John Morton did. Spooky!"
Did he write it though, or merely transcribe it?
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Comment number 3.
At 17th Mar 2011, zingmatter wrote:I do like this version more than the aussie version but I do think Jon Plowman (clip on /programmes/b00yw1t9%29 might have had the grace to mention that the "idea" had been done already for Sydney.
(I doubt I'm the first to mention this am I?)
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Comment number 4.
At 22nd Mar 2011, Rob L wrote:I did like the coach episode... It was like one of those horrible anxiety dreams where you just can't seem to get somewhere and every possible problem seems to occur, and it makes no sense!
Because I live here, I could not help but spot that the "Central London Hotel" they were staying in looked like the Britannia International on Marsh Wall, about 5 minutes walk from Canary Wharf, where the bus supposedly set out from.
Also the "Blackwall Tunnel" was in fact the Limehouse Link tunnel, so they never actually went south of the river. The shots where they were supposedly South of the river were in fact the same roundabout as when they were "lost" North of the River at Aspen Way/A13 as I think you can see the same McDonald's there in both shots.
So... they must have had a happy time in a coach going round and round the roundabout at Blackwall, and back and forth through the Limehouse Link, although I suspect the reason they did this was for practical reasons, to get that shot of the police van, and the traffic with the broken down van in the tunnel, would have been very difficult if not impossible to do in the real Blackwall tunnel. (Plus you would probably have had about a 40 minute delay getting back North again!!) In the Limehouse Link, there are in fact two tunnels that merge together, and I noticed that it seemed to be filmed from the slip road in the middle, where the A13 and Westferry sections of the tunnel merge, so definitely a safer way to get that shot. (Possibly at night?)
All quite funny when you recognise all the places they are going through!
R.
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Comment number 5.
At 24th Apr 2011, Polemicist wrote:When it comes to either parody or satire the Â鶹Éç leads the way and is quite simply in a class of its own.
I just can't wait for the second series of Tewnty Twelve to commence.
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