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The Great Pottery Throw Down


NFallon

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I was very surprised by the throwing ... I expected everyone would at least be able to center clay!

Just add the pressure of a TV camera rolling, a short time deadline, a competition where one will be handed walking papers based on your thrown items, and hosts walking around asking questions while you are centering . . . can see where something as easy as centering becomes more of a challenge. Video of those who centered without problems was left on the floor . . . not interesting to the masses viewing.

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I just had a 10 minutes look into the series. I must say it's very difficult for me to understand the English language. I am used to talking with Americans and have (almost) no problems to understand them. But the English?! Oh boy, I had to rewind and rewind until I understood what the muscular man, who shows the wedging first, said. Maybe some other day I will watch and try to understand the next 10 minutes....

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Really Evelyne - I'm so surprised! I've just watched the beginning again and can barely detect any kind of accent in his voice - Major Tom that is. The presenter (yuk!) and a couple of the others have a bit of a northern twang, a short 'a' (as in cat rather than cart) in for example 'task', but nothing very strong.

Of course if you're used to American Englishwhich isn't really English, then perhaps that's understandable. You'll have to turn on the subtitles!

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Now now now American English not really English! LOL

 

You need to talk to a northern American THEN try and talk to one of us Southerners! Now THAT is 2 different languages. hahaha Please don't anyone be insulted. Frankly I watch a lot of British TV and didn't notice any really strong accents. The word usage you have to pay attention to since the Brits use different words for stuff than we do but a few minutes in and that goes away too.

 

It was interesting to watch. I LOVE that during the handle competition one of the potters finishes quickly and asks if they can help others finish theirs. The host to them No. Potters are great people and I really hope the hosts don't push them into being typical competitors.

 

T

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 i always use subtitles because no matter what, someone goes by in a truck at the important phrase.  they are very helpful unless you watch the news.  cannot understand how the captions cannot be copied accurately since a group of people reading the news are READING the news.  the computers never get names correctly and the whole sentence gets lost while the machine tries to catch up.  

 

so, who has the link to this week's episode?

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Well, I'm feeling totally inadequate as I didn't catch all those sexual innuendos.  Maybe the Brits innuendos are so understated that some Americans don't get them.

 

I don't wedge clay if it's straight out of the bag, except for coning, and I don't get cracks.

That's one thing I got a charge out of and hope it will continue .... Seeing they have their own lists of guesses to why something happened ...

 

Re: the huge crack In the bowl ...." oh, that clay was not wedged long enough." .... Ummm ... we would say ... likely the bottom was not compressed well enough and it was dried too fast.

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Me too Chris, although I think the lady who left was more of a sculptor than a thrower, so perhaps she can be forgiven. However - knowing you were going on the programme, surely you'd get a bit of help beforehand and practise! After all, a couple of tips from an experienced thrower and you wonder how you ever found it so difficult - well, in my experience anyway! I was just surprised that a couple of them tried to start throwing up the walls when they clearly hadn't got the clay centred - maybe the pressure of time was getting to them, who knows?

Still looking forward to tomorrow night.

 

And the biggest clue is in the name  "throw-down", I too was surprised at some of their efforts at centering.  Not that I'm any better.

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Of course if you're used to American Englishwhich isn't really English, then perhaps that's understandable. You'll have to turn on the subtitles!

Its funny you should say that. I have trouble understanding some British shows and movies and I complain to my wife that they aren't speaking English and I need subtitles. In the movie "Mr. Turner" all I heard was "ruff, gruff, ruff, ruff" and my wife was having a difficult time also. It's all about how and where we grew up and what our ears are used to.

 

Paul

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In my post about American English - all the emoticons disappeared! They made it clear I was teasing all of you across the pond. I hope no one took offence.

I've been out this evening and will have to watch tonight's episode on catch up - I'll be dashing back from my volunteer morning with the Red Cross at the hospital to watch it with my feet up and a cup of tea! Not sure how you get the link but someone will no doubt post it.

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Flowerdry I have to agree about wedging clay.

And Chris - I think there was some editing in there as I can't believe none of the contestants suggested the cracks were due to the quick drying. For some reason the programme producers didn't want that to be made clear - though the judges would of course have known and to be fair they didn't actually make a big deal about it in their critiques.

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Loving it!

 

What epic disasters

 

What fabulous successes

 

The creativity and unique visions on the basins was amazing.

 

Throwing a pot blindfolded... I already close my eyes to center and sometimes at different points when I am trying to "hear" the clay with my hands. I know that sounds weird but that's what it seems like.

 

Thank you so much for posting a link to this show.

 

T

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Really Evelyne - I'm so surprised! I've just watched the beginning again and can barely detect any kind of accent in his voice - Major Tom that is. The presenter (yuk!) and a couple of the others have a bit of a northern twang, a short 'a' (as in cat rather than cart) in for example 'task', but nothing very strong.

Of course if you're used to American Englishwhich isn't really English, then perhaps that's understandable. You'll have to turn on the subtitles!

 

Why, Celia, that is a bit harsh. American English is not real English? I hope nobody feels offended... :wacko:

 

For an American, already speaking "so called" English, real English is better to understand than for us aliens, for whom both kinds of English is a total foreign language. And so I am happy that Paul also hears gruff wuff ruff when he watches English series. (Thank you Paul! Welcome to the club). As for Major Tom (is that English humor??): he speaks very fast, swallows half of the sentences, speakes under the table instead of in my face and I can't read his lips anymore. Stupid me didn't know there are subtitles. Thank you for the hint!

 

And yes, does anyone have the link to the #2 of the series? Washbasins: how exciting.....

 

Evelyne

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Oh Evelyn - I'm so sorry, I really didn't mean to offend! Our British humour I'm afraid! Although some Americanisms really do make the English cringe - 'gotten' for example, which you'd never hear over here. Apart from English subtitles for English programmes, that our TVs have the facility to do, I only realised about other subtitles when we were in Spain last month and my husband was scrolling through the settings on the TV. There was an English film, dubbed in Spanish and he found the way to put up English subtitles! Perhaps you could get Swiss subtitling, though if it's on the computer, rather than directly through the TV that might be pushing the technology a bit far!

 

'Major Tom' was not my attempt at humour, that was how the presenter referred to him and I think that was because he is ex-Army. I suspect that might have been his rank, or at least just a reference to his Army history.

 

To be perfectly honest I think it's amazing that so many people world wide understand and speak English, when on the whole, as a nation, we're not good at languages ourselves! I do have a smattering of French and German and will attempt basic courtesies in Spanish and Italian if I'm on holiday.

 

Still haven't found an hour to watch last night's episode - might just squeeze it in before going out to a pottery class this evening.

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Well, I'm feeling totally inadequate as I didn't catch all those sexual innuendos.  Maybe the Brits innuendos are so understated that some Americans don't get them.

 

Floweredry, you're very sweet! I would explain the various comments here, but I'd probably have to be too explicit and it would be edited by the moderators. Let's see if I can be subtle -

 

When they were preparing the clay there were references to 'slapping' and the presenter asked ...'ever your neighbour's curtains twitch...what's happening at Jane's house?'

One guy was pulling a handle and the presenter said - 'Oh Nigel, you look quite at home there (smirk, chuckle), ..... Does your wife ever.......do pottery with you?' He was then laughing - an embarrassed laugh to my mind.

Plus the very explicit replies to the question about whether pottery was better than sex etc.

I'm not a prude at all, but it just seemed so unnecessary.

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