I recently found this little piece of gold on ‘teh internets’.

Its a show called The Secret Life of Machines, originally produced for Channel 4 in the United Kingdom,  and is something everyone should watch right now.

These days we are quite jaded by the mind boggling 3D graphics, exploded views and general high-tech smoke and mirrors of shows on Discovery Channel and the likes, but you have to watch this show from 1988 (Thats two decades ago) to realise how simple and yet riveting a show about how things work can be.

It is presented by engineer, illustrator, artist and general  tinkerer, Tim Hunkin and special effects creator and also general tinkerer, Rex Garrod (neither of whom I’d ever heard of either) and no matter how many shows you have seen or how much you think you know about stuff you will find something new and unique and quite wonderful in each episode. From tracing the history of everyday appliances to taking them apart to building working models on the same principles, the two hosts have enough talent between the two of them to put entire countries to shame.

The simple,whimsical illustrations, based on drawings by Tim Hunkin, the hugely understated way in which he presents (no retakes for fumbles) and his clearly apparent love for the things he speaks about are a refreshing throwback to the time when a guy in a tweed jacket and a receding hairline could still host a show if he had the talent. Today it seems to be all about fake noses, cleavage and tele-prompters.

Get and watch all the shows here. Tim Hunkin is cool with file sharing the show. (Or so wikipedia says)

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Films, Tech