Multi Screening

Apparently the word for playing on your iphone and watching TV is not multi tasking as I thought, but "multi screening" this all came about as I was discussing the TV series True Detectives with my sister.  I mainly started watching it as I've been in love with Matthew McConaughey since forever (well since 1995, so almost 20 years), anyway, I was telling my sister that although the series is really good, I sometimes, ok a lot of the time, don't really know what is going on in the series and am having to rely on the Wikipedia app on my iphone to keep me in the loop.  I'd probably understand what was going on a little better, if I didn't spend half the time playing The Candy Crush Saga inbetween painting my fingernails. 

I don't actually remember the last time I just single screened, before I had an iphone, I would surf the internet on my laptop whilst watching TV, or I would read a magazine or a book and once I went through a phase of knitting.  So whilst I am still not entirely cleared what happened in True Detectives, at least I know what I am doing whilst it is on.

The Greatest Thing to Happen on my Journey into Work

So I get the bus into work every morning and I like to delude myself that it's only a 20 minute journey, so if at 9:15 I'm still at home watching Daybreak, it's fine as I'll only be a couple of minutes late!  To be fair my journey to work is pretty quick and stress free as long as it's not raining and the bus isn't full of school kids.  But yesterday morning my journey to work was revolutionised, with the introduction of a clock on the bus, I've always wondered why there wasn't a time piece at the front of the bus, as on some of them they even have TVs.  The great thing about having the time up front and centre is that if I'm in the middle of a good bit of my book, I don't have to put it down and try and fish my phone out of my bag for a time check, or if I'm at a crucial stage in my game of Candy Crush Saga, I don't have to lose my focus by closing the app just to assure myself that yes I am running the tiniest bit late.  So thank you whoever at TFL came up with this brilliant initiative, I salute you.

Ode to the Video Cassette

Continuing with the theme of how kids today have it easy, me and my sister often reminisce about the days of the video cassette and how generations of teenagers will never experience the sensation of satisfaction when returning from a night out or weekend away and discovering all your programmes have recorded successfully and are resay for you to watch at your leisure whilst fast forwarding through the adverts, or the pain of discovering that you set it up wrong and have only taped the first 5 minutes of Friends and the BBC News instead of Fraiser. 

Because, back in the day when there were only 5 channels and believe it or not hardly any repeats, leaving your TV for the evening could mean missing a vital episode of your favourite TV programme, and sometimes it wasn’t worth the risk!

Now in the days of catch up TV and Sky Plus and Virgin Tivo, it’s no longer necessary to highlight the Radio Times each week, and set aside half an hour before you go out, to find a video tape with enough space on it and then intricately programme the video to record at least 5 minutes before and 5 minutes after just in case the schedule is delayed, all you need to do is press one button, and where is the sense of achievement or accomplishment in that. 

So perhaps my point is that whilst it is easier today, the lengths we had to go to when we were younger made the programmes that little bit more special, for example I'll never forget the time I lived in France and my sister sent me the Eastenders Omnibus and episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel every 2 weeks on a video, and no matter what I will never get rid of the video I taped the last 5 episodes of Sunset Beach on. So kids today might have it easier, but they do not necessarily have it better.

Bloody Hour Change

Ok so I have a major issue with the clocks going forward and it’s not the one you are thinking, yes I do miss that extra hour in bed on Sunday morning, and it does take me forever to get used to the time difference and on Monday I’m still doing that annoying thing of asking what the time is and what the time was, but none of these are the issue. 

My problem is that kids today have it easy, when I was young it was my job to go round the house the night before, just as we were going to bed and reset all the clocks, and heaven forfend I forgot to do one of them, now in the age of smart phones and smart TV most electrical devices do this automatically so we don’t even need to know there is an hour change, there is none of this manual low tech malarkey eating into the already shorter day. 

Also and maybe because of this no one seems to warn us anymore about the hour change, it’s a passing comment on the Saturday rather than a reoccurring conversation the whole of the week before, to be honest though as I’m so tired out by the whole thing, I’m not even sure what my actual point is....