Ways with Words - 1x12 - Episode 12- Followmy.tv

AWAY WITH WORDS gets into dictionaries, codes and computers as presenter Neil Innes boldly goes into cyberspace in pursuit of the development of the English language. The fun series, which probes the unlikely origins of everyday words and phrases pays a call to the Cyber Café in Milton Keynes to see where words fit in to the web-wide world of modern technology. Neil also visits Bletchley Park where top-secret wartime code-breakers struggled to crack the German Enigma machine, and sees why the world's first electronic valve computer was named Colossus. Before the programme is over, he gets to drive a tank, and a very smart car. But it's not all car names and techno-speak. At nearby Stony Stratford, Neil is soon on the trail of the original Cock and Bull story. This small Buckinghamshire town once boasted more than sixty coaching inns, catering for the many travellers who stopped here on the road between London and the North. Two of the best-known local hostelries were the Cock and the Bull, and the suggestion is that as the best gossip passed between them, the stories became increasingly embellished and somewhat removed from reality. Snuggling down with some less than stimulating bedtime reading at the Cock Hotel, Neil also treads in the footsteps of the celebrated Dr Johnson, who stayed here while he was working on his famous dictionary.