ANALOGUE LEFTOVERS IN A DIGITAL AGE

Monday, August 14, 2006 11:19:55 AM

So. New House. My idea? All digital.

This means the dumping of my accumulated piles of VHS tapes. Given that I previously adhered to the traditional labelling system for tapes (either leaving them blank or with an abbreviation so cryptic it would take a dozen Enigma machines to work it out), this means I have to go through them all (roughly 150) to see if there is anything I want to keep. Here's what I've found so far:

Many many episodes of TV blooper shows
Three episodes of A Bit of Fry & Laurie that I taped, forgot about, then realised I was missing and spent large amounts of time online trying to find them.
My sister on Trisha (as an audience member, not a guest, though it is still shaming)
Home videos of me in various stages of annoyingness.
The entire evening of Christmas Day 1991 on BBC1
South Park - Not Without My Anus - one of no less than four unsuccessful attempts by us to see the end of the episode that revealed who Eric Cartman's father was.
Episodes of Friends, Due South, Father Ted, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Jonathan Creek, Mr Bean, Murder Most Horrid, Jack Dee, Buffy, Angel . There are also episodes of things on after the thing I wanted recorded that have now fallen into the dustbin of history. Does anyone remember Slap! Love, Lies & Lipstick? Didn't think so.

The stuff I still want, I'll transfer onto my computer. The rest is to be thrown away, wavy lines where all is now 0s and 1s. Nowadays you're either something or nothing, on or off, charged or uncharged.

It's odd but I like it that way.