# Question for British TV viewers

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-british-tv-viewers/78841>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [August 30, 2001, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-british-tv-viewers/78841 "2001-08-30T00:46:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-british-tv-viewers/78841/1 "2001-08-30T00:46:47Z")

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The popularity of **Junk Yard Wars** (i.e. **Scrapheap Challenge** ) got me thinking about one of the coolest british TV shows ever (second only to **Connections** ), **The Secret Life of Machines.** TLC or Discovery aired it about 5 or 6 years ago. I assumed it was, like a lot of BBC shows, only a limited run of maybe a dozen or so shows.

Did the two guys who presented it go on to do anything else?

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**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-british-tv-viewers/78841/2 "2001-08-30T01:48:01Z")

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Television is among the things that can be discussed in the new Cafe Society forum, so I’ll move this over there.

bibliophage  
moderator, GQ

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**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\
**Post date:** [August 30, 2001, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-british-tv-viewers/78841/3 "2001-08-30T02:14:53Z")

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This is an apology.  
I was talking to my mate only yesterday about this series (one was called ‘The Secret Life of the Photocopier’.)  
I think it was on BBC2 (public broadcasting, second channel, minority interests, quality programs), but the BBC website is incredibly difficult to navigate.  
If you want to try yourself, it’s at:

> **[BBC - Home](https://www.bbc.co.uk)**
>
> The best of the BBC, with the latest news and sport headlines, weather, TV & radio highlights and much more from across the whole of BBC Online.

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**Author:** ![everton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@everton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/everton)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2001, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-for-british-tv-viewers/78841/4 "2001-09-01T10:14:03Z")

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You may find [this site](http://www.hunkinsexperiments.com/) interesting if you want to find out more about Tim Hunkin’s work (can’t remember the other guy’s name off the top of my head, but he’s another top bloke).

As far as I can tell, Hunkin hasn’t been on television apart from those few shows. He used to write a regular column for _The Observer_ newspaper’s colour supplement, explaining how everyday stuff works etc. (and I suspect that’s where they got the idea for _The Secret Life Of…_).

He also designs anamatronic displays for museums and other places. I remember him designing a fantastic sit-down ride for the Meadowhall shopping mall near Sheffield, and was very disappointed when they cancelled the scheme before it was installed – it would’ve been much more entertaining than the mall itself.