OK, tonight whilst watching my TV set (an old but not really, really old
Grundig supercolor) the screen went blank during a programme - so what you
say - we thought it was an outage at the station so did the usual and tried
other channels, but they were all blank. Switched the TV off and back on -
and when it came on again, it now just displays 3 padlocks on the screen
with "0-9 X X X X" underneath it!!!

I know it sounds like childlock or something, but why did it suddenly come
on (the remote is busted and is in a faraway drawer) - what can I do? As the
remote is bust, even if its childlock (never used it before, don't know how
it works / what the password might be / even if we have childlock) I can't
think of anything to do except leave it switched off for as long as
possible, in the hope that like computers, there might be a chip that
remembers its in lock mode which might wipe itself. Am I right? Or is my TV
just foobared? Its really odd! Any help out there? Couldn't find any TV
repair newsgroups!