Videos - Utter Garbage

Sky Plus, iPlayer, 4OD, Internet TV, dedicated catch up channels; there are so many ways to make sure you don’t miss your favourite show.

So why on earth are VHS videotapes still more popular than internet TV? Check this out:

VHS still ahead of internet TV for catch-ups

I’m dumbfounded, and not for the first time.

Sure, it’s great to reminisce about the good old days when you taped Airwolf and recorded the Top 40 from the radio on your ghetto blaster, but (and I’ll say this in a Carrie Bradshaw style):

‘….in this day and age, are VHS video cassettes really necessary?’

I remember my first experience with VHS. We borrowed next door’s top-loading Ferguson VCR machine, which required four strong men to carry over, and watched Neil Diamond’s version of ‘The Jazz Singer’ as a family, all eyes fixed on its fuzzy, chewed up brilliance.

Great film incidentally, I love the bit where he rocks up at the airport with a massive beard. And the soundtrack (“Hello my friend, hello…..”) is a rare and precious gemstone.

However, this was 1990 (I’m from Northamptonshire; everything arrives 5 years too late there). John Barnes was urging us to hold and give but do it at the right time, we were wearing jeans that could accommodate the entire population of Macedonia, and Trafalgar Square was besieged by hoards of very angry poll tax rioters. Whisper it, but that was eighteen years ago.

I’m aware there will always be individuals who prefer traditional and established methods of enjoying media, and I only baulk at labelling this practice ‘Paul Weller Syndrome’ because I myself choose to listen to vinyl records above CDs and MP3. Additionally, reading a story online is no substitute for physically holding a book in my opinion.

My VCR got turfed out light years ago though, with good reason. There’s no pleasure to be gained from endlessly fast forwarding or rewinding, plus the gloomy spectre of ‘oh no, I taped over the bar mitzvah’ constantly hovers overhead like the Grim Reaper’s axe.

Frankly, Sky Plus rocks my world.

Am I right, or am i right?