Parental Guidance

[ustane]

I have checked tonight, this hasn't happened on my TV, but has recently on a friend's. We both have Virgin cable. He seldom uses the channels and did not request any parental control option. Nor does he have any children in the house. Most channels got locked up. We had to put a PIN number in to watch: Titanic; Steptoe & Son (PG); The Birds (15); Marnie (Hitchcock classic). There was no PIN number, so we had to ring Virgin to set one. We spent enough time verifying there were no children in the house before they'd agree to set a PIN. They set a PIN. We entered it. The PIN number didn't work. It said INVALID PIN NUMBER. AFTER TWO MORE ATTEMPTS PIN NUMBER WILL BE LOCKED. We rang them back. They said there was a fault with the system and seemed to sort it. Message box said WAIT 15 MIN again. After 15 minutes the PIN number did not unlock the channel. I went into the Settings menu to see if I could take off the Parental Control. You can't. Have to put in a PIN first to alter anything anyway. We rang them again and they were going off duty. We put in the PIN number and were told to wait another 15 minutes. By then I'd missed about an hour of the film.:mad: Finally it worked and the channel opened. But by the time I could watch my movies my enthusiasm for them was gone, they were ruined by the upset. If we went on another channel it would not remain the same. That one would be locked. If we went back to that channel we had to put the PIN in again. That meant not being able to flick backwards & forwards when the adverts were on or browse. As was said on Turning Of The Tide, if they do away with cash, and force you to pay by card, if the computer doesn't accept your card and there's still cash, you can say, well I'll pay by cash then. But if there is no cash and the computer doesn't accept your card you cannot buy. The computer determines if you purchase.:mad: We're at the mercy of That outside. A network controlling what we watch. An analogue TV can give you channels independently. A digital one can't, channels are encrypted, they are doing the switchover, complete in the East Midlands area by 2010. Won't be any more analogue TVs. The network can decide what you don't watch and can cut you off if they want to, whenever they want to. The network have also had things there for free and then taken them away by charging you for them. The next day the channels locked and the PIN number had to be entered again. The authorities :mad: regard that we are all dysfunctional and can't look after our own children and have to take over our homelife. Before every film like watching it on a cinema screen, a censorship warning with icons came on. How does anyone know what is not fixing in a child's mind? 'She' had a U certificate, I went to bed as a kid bothered by the ending. The very same forces who threaten you with child abuse laws are the ones who done all the abuse.... see 'Trance Formation Of America', ... and blow off a child's arms & legs in Iraq/Afghanistan:( We didn't have the choice to take the control off. They put on 95 percent crap on TV, mindless game shows, take away classic entertainment. They don't want a house of adults to enjoy a horror movie. They want to make the horror for us, and not for us to enjoy. At the control of a computer, failed passwords, numbers. Drooling quote: 'The computer says no.....', 'The computer says nooooo....' (yawn) - from Little Britain.