The King's Speech ...

Mrs. A and I watched this terrific film this evening after dinner.  I won't bore you with a review.  But if you have not seen it, you're missing one of the best movies of the past ten years.

It occurred to me during the flick, in the scenes at the end where The Speech is delivered, as the camera moves through the BBC studio and short-wave XMTR control panels that sent out the BBC broadcasts via hugely directional antenna arrays set on hundreds and thousands of acres of land across many countries in what was then the British Empire that things sure have changed since I was a little kid.

Then, and into the 1970's, it would have cost millions upon millions of dollars/pounds to make that speech happen via broadcast radio.

Not today.  Not by a long shot.

I realized that I had all of the equipment I needed to transmit such a King's Speech to the world set up on a TV tray in front of me: a mic, a small mixer, a headset, a laptop with a high-speed link and a few pieces of software.

The cost today?  Around a grand. And the second Speech would be even less expensive.

King's Speeches come cheaper these days.