BOFH: The poncy director's cut EXT: COUNTRYSIDE A lush pasture with snow-capped mountains in the distance. A fluffy white rabbit hops into shot, stops and nibbles on some grass. [Dissolve to...] INT: BOSS'S OFFICE The BASTARD, PFY and BOSS are clustered around the screen of the Boss's desktop machine. PFY See, he just pushes his machine off the desk …
I've been a fan of BOFH since the very, very first episode. I've stopped reading them (and reading this article strengthened my resolve) - they're becoming boring and repetitive. The first 2-3 years had real comedy in them, it's almost as if the later ones are being written by someone else.
Thanks for the hours of entertainment, but I feel it's time to bid the BOFH farewell.
"Oh come on. You have to save a few. Propagation of the species and all that."
They breed like rabbits....teenage rabbits...why do you think they aren't doing much in the way of work when at work? They are busy F***ing around...and bothering the admins when they can't get to their porn.
"I mean, without lusers, where's the entertainment coming from?"
Unreal Tournament!
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/oriented says:
Which is the correct spelling: 'oriented' or 'orientated'?
It really doesn't matter: it's a matter of personal taste. Orientated is currently preferred use in general British use. Oriented is prevalent in technical use, and in the US.
Our University lecturers used to get really round up about that!
I'm trying to bring BOFH to the small screen. I think there's a lot of mileage in it. I've got three episodes completed so far, and outline stories for six more. A pilot show, a series of six plus Christmas and summer holiday specials.
There are a few differences, though. The BOFH doesn't hate all users equally - he's smart enough to realise that some are more equal then others:
SIMON (to the PFY). As far as service level agreements go, I have a fixed resolution time of "when I get around to it, if I get around to it." They take what they get or suffer the consequences. Now get this. There are two classes of user in this company – those that make the money and those that make work for us. The CEO and immediate team, and the people on the trading floor are the important users. We deal with their problems pronto. The other twenty thousand people in the company go through the helldesk and don't call here. Unless they want to meet the business end of this. (produces cattle prod).
That's not to say that important users don't suffer - so far, I've got the BOFH bringing down the trading floor, arranging a week's free holiday in New York courtesy of the CEO, extorting money from a senior executive (who happens to be female, drop-dead gorgeous, as bright as the BOFH is but not so tech-savvy) and stealing two sets of Christmas bonuses from all the executives. BOFH aficionados may be able to spot where I got some of those ideas from :-)
The tricky part is dumbing down the technology aspect to a level non-IT people can understand, while not turning it into the IT Crowd. I think I'm managing that OK. But if it ever hits the screen, apologies in advance to the DBAs and network engineers who think it's a bit simplistic.
I wish you the best of luck in doing this, and hopefully SimonT would be willing to go along with it. (I confess that I don't know what the legal requirements for this are. I know he's got the copyright but I have no idea how far that extends, or if it covers a given character in a story.)
(I wrote some--okay, 90 (!!)--stories in a similar vein to the BOFH. They're unpublished and probably will remain so because their only purpose was to get me through the dry times. Most are fairly original, featuring different plots, a slightly different attitude toward users (still bad, just differently so) and different characters.)
I'd like to see how it goes even if you don't reach the point where it's on the TV...so I hope you'll give some thought to making it available on the smaller-yet screen on Youtube or similar.
I promise I'll keep everyone posted as far as I can, but it will go quiet if / when discussions with production companies start. I did drop Simon a line a little while ago, but he hasn't got back to me yet. I suppose I could go ahead regardless, but some of the best ideas are his, as are some of the cracking one-liners. Best to avoid unpleasantness by aiming to get him on side from the start.
I also can't post much in the way of excerpts here, much as I'd like to. There can be a reluctance to put money into things that have already been circulated on the Internet, which is understandable - a lot of folks might think if they've read it on the intertubes, why watch it on the goggle box?
Having said that, if I can't persuade a TV company to take it on - and that includes a no dumbing-down clause - then I think YouTube or something similar may well be the way to go.
Watch this space :-)
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