Video head cleaner

An engineer friend tells us he was rather heartened to discover that even in the face of
hi-tech problems the young electrical engineer who had come to fix the family video recorder could improvise a low-tech solution to the problem.

Half way through his grandchildren’s viewing of “The Jungle Book” the picture became distorted devastatingly – in the eyes of his grand children, at least. Our friend suspected that an expensive, proprietary head cleaner would be the only answer but having shelled out for said device and found the picture just as bad afterwards he contacted the local repair shop.

He expected the engineer to arrive with an array of tools and equipment and was shocked when, after a quick inspection of the machine, a piece of his cigarette packet was removed, the VCR opened, and the fragment of cardboard scraped across the delicate playback heads.

Biting his tongue for fear of inciting further wanton vandalism, our friend watched as the engineer slotted “The Jungle Book” back into the machine, pressed play and then sat back as the video played perfectly.

For the politically correct, the edge of a business card or stout envelope may work just as well and we’re considering patenting the idea. Just don’t blame us if you b*llox up your machine.