Admission of idiocy

I hear that the BBC is cutting the insults to Mexicans out of the version of Top Gear they sell overseas.

Ha! So it's not just people misunderstanding the robust British sense of humour then, is it? No, I didn't think so.

Those bloody 555s

While I'm on the subject of TV: OK, I know why US TV uses those damned 555 phone numbers, but is there some law that they have to show them to us? It's pretty easy to not tell us what a number is. Characters can write them down and give them to other characters, or look at a screen we can't see and say they have the number. How hard is that? But no, they always focus on the piece of paper, or the screen listing a person's details, or the phone records etc etc. It's like a bucket of cold water in the face, like telling us, "It's not real, stupid." Way to throw me right out of a show. NCIS is a particularly bad offender.

So I wondered: is there a law requiring them not only to use the 555s, but also to show us each and every phone number just to prove they all have 555 in them?

It makes me shout at the screen about the sloppy writing.