Bluff City 33: To Be Young Near the Shore Pt. 02

ycfi09_continued.srt

YOU can fix it: Episode 9 (Continued): Persimmon Idiosyncrasies

Subtitles provided by gardenia76

So, here, with the screwdriver: these are the two video heads. And then down below it, right here, that’s the erase head. Looks like a little black pillar.

And this is a puzzler, because Persimmon erase heads… how do I put it? They’re much smaller than this, and they’re usually made of this kind of coral coloured plastic, I guess melted down from the washing machine order, or something. 

No, this isn’t an original piece. Someone’s replaced this already, and what’s even odder is… I’m going to take it out, hang on. 

[High whine of motorised screwdriver]

Yeah, let me - let me just hold it up here. Let that focus. This is intact. Turn it over, I don’t see anything here that looks like a malfunction, anything that would stop the erase head from doing its job. 

This looks just fine to me. 

[Heavy sigh]

What did this say. I picked it up on eBay and the lot said… I’ve got it here on my phone. “Persimmon Model 60X. Broken Erase Head. Will not erase. Sticker says—“ 

Huh! I didn’t notice it mentioned the sticker before. “Sticker on reverse says Jocelyn”. Sure does. 

Usually I just take these things on trust. Trust that the erase head was broken. 

But this looks fine to me, albeit with an unusual replacement. This should work. So next week, what I’m gonna do is—I’m gonna dig out a VHS, something I don’t mind losing, and see if this old Persimmon will play ball. 

Maybe the seller just had bad luck. Maybe this doesn’t need a fix at all?

Featuring: Austin Walker, Andrew Lee Swan, Sylvi Clare, Jack de Quidt and Keith J Carberry

Music & Description by Jack de Quidt

A transcription is available for this episode here.

A full list of completed transcriptions is available here. Our transcriptions are provided by a fan-organized paid transcription project.