# Somebody shortened it before the tape ever ran

> A duplicated working page with one row ruled out in red and a two-line note in the margin — the film that reached the household was already a version cut to fit an afternoon.

August 21, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-cut-made-for-television

A page of duplicated typescript fills the back. Fourteen rows, each numbered down the left, each
typed so heavily that not one word of it resolves.

One red rule goes clean through row 09. A shorter red mark clips row 10. In the right margin, in
red handwriting sloping slightly upward: LOSE THIS ONE FOR THE FOUR O'CLOCK.

## What kind of page is this?

A working copy of a running order, marked up by whoever had to make it fit a slot.

The typing is the tell. It has been duplicated — reproduced in quantity by a machine that pushed
too much ink through — so the letterforms have closed up, the counters have filled in, and the
strike weight varies row to row. That is what a page looks like after it has been through a
process, as opposed to a page drawn to look like one.

A prop page would be legible, because a prop's job is to be read. This one has the opposite job:
it stays unreadable so that the marks on it are the only thing anybody can follow.

## What are the two red marks doing?

Recording two decisions made at different speeds.

The rule through row 09 runs the full width, drawn in one movement, and it is unambiguous — the row
is gone. The mark on row 10 is short, clips the start of the line and stops. Somebody began a
second strike and did not finish it, either because they changed their mind or because whatever
they were doing interrupted them.

One clean edit would have said the page had been decided. Two marks of unequal confidence say it
was being decided while the pen was in somebody's hand, which is more information and a better
drawing.

## Why does the numbering run 01 to 12, then 12 again, then 14?

Because whoever typed the page mistyped a number, and the mistake went into every copy after it.

The thirteenth row down carries the figure 12, the same as the row above it, and the run picks up
correctly again at 14. Nobody caught it, or somebody caught it and decided a duplicated working
page did not warrant retyping.

That error is part of the artwork and belongs on the print as it is. Correcting it to a clean 01 to
14 would turn the object into a design of a page — an error like that only exists because a person
was typing against a clock, and it is the single most convincing thing on the whole garment.

## Who is the margin note talking to?

One person, about one afternoon.

It is not a memo to a department. It is addressed to whoever is holding this particular copy, in
handwriting, in a colour chosen because it would show against the typing. Two lines, ending in a
full stop — written quickly but written properly.

The four o'clock is a slot, not a title. It names a time of day and nothing else, which is how
people talk when everybody in the conversation already knows what goes out then. A fixed
transmission time is as rigid as
[a sequence that runs in the same order every time](/stories/the-trailers-in-a-fixed-order),
and it is the reason the row had to go.

## Does a page like this belong to anybody?

There is nothing on this garment to license. No channel, no broadcaster, no title, no legible
sentence.

The illegibility is doing that work on purpose. It is the opposite job to
[three lines of capitals built to be read across a room](/stories/the-warning-you-could-not-skip),
and the reason for it is the same: what you can read is what you can be held to.

Titles, artwork and performers do belong to somebody, and they are licensable rather than off
limits. If a real one is the point of what you are making, getting the permission is part of the
job, and worth doing before anything is printed. Where it is not the point, an invented page is the
better shirt anyway — the recognisable one is the shirt a thousand people already own. Style has no
owner. A work does.

## Does it read to somebody who has never seen a running order?

Yes, because the marks are the part that reads, and they are legible in any trade.

A row struck through, a shorter strike beside it, an instruction in the margin — a person who has
cut a talk down to time, dropped a course off a menu or lost a song from a set list recognises the
shape of that page before they know what is on it. The subject is the cut, not the film.

For anyone who grew up with a household copy, it also explains something: the running time they
know is shorter than the one on somebody's original, and so is the run of the tape once
[the breaks nobody edited out](/stories/the-break-bumper-left-in) are counted in.

## Does it print well?

Yes, provided the typing is drawn coarser than real typing.

Over-inked typescript at this size sits right at the floor of what a knit will hold. Reproduce it
with fewer rows and heavier, blunter strokes than the original had, and let the illegibility do its
job — nothing is lost, because nothing was meant to be read. Fine grey ghosting behind the rows
reads as depth at arm's length and disappears at the printer.

The red wants a genuinely different quality: thin, slightly uneven, clearly drawn rather than
printed. And there is no rectangle around the page. The block of rows is its own edge, and the
margin note breaking out to the right is what stops the whole thing looking like a photograph glued
to a shirt. Ecru, bone and pale grey suit it. Two inks: one near-black, one red.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the page at [JustOG](/) — how many rows, which one gets the red rule, and what the margin
note says. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's
made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Row 09 is on somebody's original and not on the copy in that house, and nobody there has ever known
what was in it.