Yet we are the lucky ones. We are the ones who recall the simple and short-lived pleasures of the mini-disc; the stylish arrival and departure of the videodisc (thanks, Philips CD-i); the entertainment revolutions of a fuzzy Channel Five picture and, later on, a slightly clearer ITV Digital (née ONdigital) service.
But the king of techstalgia (my clever portmanteau of technology and nostalgia) is the VHS cassette. Whether store-bought or taped off the telly, the gratisfaction (The Strokes' clever portmanteau of gratified and satisfaction) of wielding a bible-sized block of moving plastic parts - a block you knew to contain an all-time great of Hollywood/Pinewood/ITV - can be little replicated in the age of the MP4.
Think about the great downloads of your life. It's not such a hot topic, is it? I can recall getting to grips with the very first incarnation of Napster - and then LimeWire - when all we had was a Pentium PC and a dial-up connection. Soon I would be enjoying the lush pop stylings of Barry White, Bloodhound Gang's Ballad Of Chasey Lain or Blink 182's All The Small Things, but first I would have to connect...
But we're scraping the barrel here: the download has little heritage next to the VHS. Still vivid in my mind are the VHS cassettes I have known and loved, and the more I thought on the subject ("David mused verily upon th' tapes..."), the more forgotten gems came to mind:
- First and foremost, our taped-off-the-telly Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. Remember the scene where Indy drinks the shaman's poison and becomes an unthinking acolyte? Well, I don't, because somebody (me, probably) inadvertently taped over that part with five minutes of Casualty. One second Harrison Ford is desperately trying to resist the bad guy's chanting - "Galimar, shuk-ti-day!" - the next there's a poor old sod crawling for the front door having somehow accidentally stabbed himself with a kitchen knife. As we return to the temple, Indy has Short Round dangling over a ledge. Class.
- Another taped-off-the-telly classic was our Who Framed Roger Rabbit?/Tremors double-bill. This was always the first tape I reached for when I was off school "sick".
- One of my older sisters got Far & Away for a birthday present. I soon snuck away with it to take in the glorious epic of one man's struggle against an unconvincing Irish accent and a sham celebrity marriage. It was as if the Cruiser had peered into the future, snaffled the very best elements of Australia and Gangs Of New York and shoehorned them into a slog of a movie not as good as either. But I loved it.
- Though we never asked for it, Hook was a VHS present from Santa Claus. It had a nifty illustrated cover and the side panels of the box were green. Outstanding.
- Another unrequested gem one Christmas was Home Alone, possibly the single greatest movie of all time.
Thanks to DVR, gone are the days when family members would scream upstairs, seeking permission - or, more accurately, objections - to record one thing over another. "Overboard is on in twenty minutes!! Can I record over... *glances at tape*... Field Of Dreams?!" "It's not Field Of Dreams, it's Romancing The Stone and Jewel Of The Nile... so no!!"
God bless the VCR and all who sailed in her. I pity those who in twenty years' time will have to dredge up trifling anecdotes of Netflix account errors, erroneously-labelled torrent downloads or "that time the Sky+ recorded Eastenders in Spanish" (though, in fairness, that last example does sound pretty hilarious). To approximate the guilty pleasure of taping off the telly, such poor souls can pause their Blu-Ray movies every 20 minutes to take in adverts like this. Timeless.
