How long is the video about a cow?
25 seconds
Which time of the year was the car journey taken?
December (winter)
What does the expression “it’s like watching paint dry” mean?
very boring
How long can you watch grass growing?
nine minutes and 53 seconds
Name two household appliances you can watch the instructions of.
dishwasher / washing machine / microwave oven (any two)
Do you need to declare if you have offshore accounts according to the text video?
yes
Tapescript
Boring viewing
Have you watched anything on YouTube recently? Was it interesting? Or really boring? Just recently, YouTube users were asked to vote on the website’s most boring videos.
Here are a few of the results.
Interested in nature? If you are, you might like to see the 25-second video of a black and white cow chewing some grass. Wonderful!
Do you like driving? If so, you might enjoy the computer simulation of a car journey from Wickford to Southminster on a snowy day in December. Sit down, make yourself comfortable and watch 45 minutes of trees flashing past. Fascinating!
Does making a model of a plane sound like an interesting topic for a video? Someone seems to think so. You can watch as the aeroplane is carefully constructed in painstaking detail.
Have you heard the English expression “it’s like watching paint dry”? It’s used to describe something that’s really, really boring. But has anyone ever really watched paint dry? Guess what? Now you can.
But if the paint drying was too exciting for you, here’s something else: nine minutes and 53 seconds of what is apparently grass growing. Pay careful attention or you might miss the action.
Are you good with technology? Do you know how to use a microwave oven? What about a dishwasher? Fear not. Now you can enjoy a detailed demonstration on how to load a dishwasher. Incredible!
And if that wasn’t enough for you, how about some instructions on how to use a washing machine? But not just any washing machine. A Bosch washing machine. It can do up to 1,000rpm. Watch it for nearly six minutes as it completes a number of cycles.
Do you know how to sharpen a pencil? Are you sure? Just in case you’ve forgotten, you can learn from an instructional video on how to use a pencil sharpener. Observe carefully as the pencil is delicately placed into the instrument and slowly turned around and around and around until its point is nice and sharp once again. Yawn!
Do you know much about tax? If not, we suggest you have a look at the ten-minute HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) video on the marvellous world of tax disclosure. “If you are a UK-based investor and have offshore accounts”, says David Hartnett, the permanent secretary for tax, “you must declare them.” Whoops! I’ve fallen asleep!
