Ramble

At a basic level, I understand the concept behind region coding on DVDs. It's mostly about licensing. Contracts and restrictions are different in different countries. Companies don't want to eliminate the audience for a DVD set because the audience already purchased copies from another country or impact the release of a movie in the theatre because the audience already saw it on a DVD from the home country.

Of course there's a difference between a relatively new movie and a 25 year old sitcom from Britain. That's most of the reason why I have a codeless DVD player. I've been watching Series 5 and 6 of 'Hi-De-Hi' of late, a 25 year old sitcom set in 1959/1960. One of the main characters, Jeffrey Fairbrother, leaves the show between the 5th and 6th series (I've dug around and I'm not sure why the actor left the show at this point). I had expected them to gloss over the change but it's been a major plot point of the 6th series. The thing that distracted me about this change was the letter that Jeffrey sends to explain his absence. He was a archeological professor and took a new job in that field, at 'Wisconsin University'. I've put that in quotes because it's generally called the University of Wisconsin here but I'm not sure what the naming conventions were in 1960.

I was immediately reminded of other connections between Wisconsin and British Entertainment. The two that popped into my mind were Onslow wearing Green Bay Packer gear on 'Keeping Up Appearances' and Neil Gaimen moving to the state. Even funnier, the characters in the programme seemed to playfully mispronounce the name of the state as the episode went on. At one point, it became 'whiskey-on-sin'.

One nickname for the state is 'Big Whiskey'. I've been drinking whiskey for my cold.

See? It all comes together in the end.