Brits inaugurate SpyTV - but what will Disney say?

Our YA Media Empire Entertainment Editor ("only a day or two out to lunch") reports on this innovation by our fun-loving pals, the Brits.

Residents of a trendy London neighbourhood are to become the first in Britain to receive "Asbo TV" -- television beamed live to their homes from CCTV cameras on the surrounding streets.

("Asbo," apparently, is British for "spy" - but we speak English here.) Those CCTV things they're talking about, those are the spy cameras scattered around the neighborhood. By all accounts they do love spy cameras there - they're all over the place, thousands of them - and now they're not just for the bobbies any more. Those lucky Brits can watch them right in their very own bedrooms.

OK I'm just assuming bedrooms - but wouldn't the best shows be after dark? Like, hey honey, Leno is boring tonight (do they have Leno there?), let's see what Barney and Madge are up to! And another neat thing, everybody gets a list of their neighbors' "anti-social behaviors" (wink, wink), sort of like a SpyTV Guide.

Technology is cool, isn't it? I mean, I used to live in a, well, enthusiastic neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (look! there's a picture from Google Earth!) and in the summer when the windows were open and the shades pulled up could watch half a dozen really great shows in the building across the street every night. It was great! But this TV thing would be even better, wouldn't it?

Anyway, as I think I was saying not too long ago on this blog or somewhere else (I'm trying to remember if I forgot - do you have days like that?) we need to remember how to entertain ourselves, what with every commercial form being copy-protected and bugged, and this sounds like just the ticket to me. Want to entertain your neighbors with a little anti-social behavior of your own? Just run right out in the street. I don't know if they have audio yet but you could always be a mime. (Look! There's Charlie, miming a mugging! Wow, he's good!)

Hey, tune in. As somebody notes in the comments (to the story linked above) surveillance is a fact now, no escaping that, it's just a question of who gets to watch. I want to watch. Don't you?

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