K12

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K12, an APAzine for PIECES OF EIGHT, April '91, from A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling, Kent, DA16 2BN "He has a pre-Copernican ego – the world revolves around him." HYPHEN

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NOW, IF SOME OF US GET TOGETHER.....

I've got the sort of mind which, when it sees a group of people, immediately starts pondering over Group Projects. I suppose that this is a sort of gut re-action against the cult of the Big Entrepreneur, the Tory ideal. Oh yes, I know the joke about a camel being a horse designed by a committee, but there are so many activities where it helps to – well, have help. Such as Gallup Polls and Convention committees.

One of the best ways one can help others is, of course, consumer tests. The fearless investigator gets a country-wide report on some product, carries out a few tests, and another issue of WHICH is in the post. You thought that soap-powder was the best thing since disposable nappies? Opinions and tests find you could get better results by taking your shirt down to the nearest river bank and using a handy rock as a scrub-board. (How do they get things clean down by the Ganges, by the way, with all that mud around?)

The trouble with WHICH and similar projects is that by the time a manufacturer is damned root and branch or hip and thigh (probably manufacturing wooden crutches) the product is past history. I remember years back getting a Bridges electric drill because WHICH said it was a definite Best Buy. Oh, it gave excellent service, but other models and other manufacturers overtook it in the next six months. I was making holes with something that wasn't quite the Best. Not that it made any difference, but I was actually selling all types of electric drills at the time, and I felt the image suffered.

So how about getting together on some opinions about Things? Video tapes, for instance. Something over 50% of you should have a video, according to statistics. Has anyone any strong opinions about which are the best? Having a fairly open – even vacant – mind I've gone through the brands since I had my own video, from the cheap to the wash-your-hands-before-you-touch-me type, and it's difficult. On the whole, the cheaper ones – Curry's own label, Matsui, Granada's 200 minute job, are adequate for a one-off recording, but after the first half-a-dozen or so there's some deterioration. The mid-range – TDK, Sony, Memorex, Bush, Maxwell are a bit more adequate, but right at the moment Scotch are my personal favourite. I've just bought some Scotch 210 minute, and they seem to combine a lack of scratches after they've been through the grinder a dozen times with a satisfactory length. But they're comparatively expensive.

My experience with 4-hour tapes hasn't been so good – in fact, pretty disastrous. Two out of the first 4 I bought went wild inside the video, producing yards of tape wound around the internals of the machine, and I've decided that, whether it's the machine or whether it's the tape, (or even me) the 4-hour is O-U-T at 16WWW. The two were Matsui and Bush, by the way.

Oddly, although the long 2-hour audio tape has such a bad reputation that you can't normally get hold of it, I've never had trouble with it on 3 different machines.

In passing, can someone tell me why reel-to-reel tape recorders seem to have gone out of fashion? Too big to carry about? Looking at some ghetto-blasters this seems hard to believe. My own ailing Telefunken needs a lot of TLC and a ton of patience these days to produce a sound like a cement-mixer, but once upon a time it would belt out 6 hours of rather low-grade stuff from one tape. And what more do you need for today's pop?

NEXT ISSUE! IS KNORR Italian Soup Napolitan THE BEST PACKAGED SOUP?

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HEY, JENNY!

In 1955, Dave Rike discovered that 42 cents would purchase the necessities for hectography, if your home already contained a tray. He used glycerine, gelatin, water and sugar. This substance had two advantages. It worked fairly well with ditto masters and if mixed with some more water and melted, it turned into high quality glue. Rike also discovered an additonal property: its ability to produce tremendous quantities of opaque smoke when permitted to boil. WEALTH OF FABLE – Harry Warner Jnr.