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.