Preparing for this retrospective, I've been glancing through those archives and in-between finding the odd massively embarrassing post which the older version of me has very much set to draft so they'll disappear from the web at large (people grow), it's mainly a reminder of just how much the modern world, especially in the area of entertainment consumables has changed. Just look at the enthusiasm with which I greeted my first DVD-by-post thanks to a freebie in The Guardian. Little did I know that a decade and a half later I'd still be doing exactly the same thing. Plus there's streaming.
The epitome of such things is this post from August 2003 written during a packing session for moving house again and having another clear out. From line to line it's a treasure so I thought I'd provide an update to everything in there and the extent to which the world of 2021 has made it both possible to stop being a hoarder but also the sheer tragedy of what was lost. There's a couple of moments in here which'll make YouTube archivists cringe. I mean it's not like I disposed of Doctor Who's Marco Polo for no good artistic reason but still. I'm getting ahead of myself.
In a fortnight we're moving back to the flat we vacated a year ago for building work. For some reason the packing doesn't seem to be as monumental this time. I didn't really unpack anything so most of my life is still in cardboard. But I filled three boxes tonight and half of everything and that seems to be half of everything I need doing.
When we moved into the temporary flat I filled a wall of the bedroom with boxes and walled them off with a giant piece of fabric and filled in the rest of the room with furniture expecting those boxes to simply be moved back again. Instead the removal firm decided we need to rebox them into even larger receptacles and so here I was having a "life laundry".
I'm also being very ruthless when it comes to clearing out. Watching Life Laundry has taught me that I don't really need to keep half the stuff I have.
Told you. Awful programme. So much irreplaceable culture lost.
The CD Roms were easy. Most were cover discs with massively old and inferior software on them and some simply weren't compatible anymore.
Fortunately most if not all of these are now preserved on archive.org. But keep in mind I was still using Windows 98 so I'm not sure what was incompatible. Now you can run most of it in a browser.
The paperwork was difficult and filled with value judgements - how long do you need to keep payslips for a job you left four years ago?
You don't is the short answer. Everything is online now. One of the gratifying elements of having my student loan forgiven is not having to source facsimiles of payslips ever year.
I've always had a rather excessive video collection. I've hoarded tv recordings and I've got thousands of tapes. But looking through some of the boxes I've already packed I can't think for the life of me why I'm keeping half of them.
This is true. Walls and walls of shelves filled with VHS tapes most of which I've now replaced with DVDs that without the boxes fit into a single file box. It was like sleeping in a Blockbuster Video. For a while I videotaped everything, diligently recording every episode of The Sopranos which I then didn't ever get around to watching (and still haven't).
Perhaps I've been spoilt by DVD but what's the point in keeping a second generation copy of Steel Magnolias in full screen which I taped and retaped from ITV ten years ago.
On to my second DVD copy of Steel Magnolias. It's also on Netflix.
I've also rammed up against the sticky problem of long play incompatibility between recorders. So all of the Quantum Leap episodes I faithfully collected from the BBC are all unwatchable because I've changed recorders twice since then.
I'd forgotten this was a problem. Those old Quantum Leap episodes were second generation by the way, after I spent a month or two copying them from SP to LP so that they'd take up less space. Now I have the whole thing on DVD in box the size of a double VHS release.
Black bagging it all is a liberating experience.
Honestly, at the time it really was. But I can't think how many films which have since gone unrepeated and aren't available anywhere went to the tip. Not to mention all of the advertising bumpers and scraps of live shows which Kaleidoscope would kill for. Sorry, it's all gone.
There are lots of programmes I would never let go of. Like the Adam and Joe Fourmative Years programme from when Channel 4 celebrated fifteen years of programming;
A VHS which I kept for many years until it turned up on All4 and now it's on Britbox too.
or the Mark Kermode documentaries about making his favourite films;
Included as extras on the relevant DVDs. The Fear of God: 25 Years of the Exorcist is permanently on the iPlayer.
or the John Cusack movie Better Off Dead.
Have the DVD.
But in the past I've thought it was important to have an archive of all these programmes, in case I had to teach a class, or anyone wanted to borrow them.
Neither of which could or would ever happen but these are lies you tell yourself when you're a hoarder.
But I realized that HMV has a better archive and Blockbuster loan out things as well.
But I realized that Amazon has a better archive and Cinema Paradiso loan things as well.
If it's the difference between having a room which doesn't look like the stacks at the British Library Audio Visual section and having a clear head, I'll choose the latter.
Smirks as he glances around the walls full of bookcases, all the books and discs. Honestly, a lot of this was just making room for newer media.
I have tapes which I bought or taped five years ago I still haven't watched. Sometimes you have let go.
Within a few years I'd be making all of these mistakes again once I'd bought a HD-DVD recorder which made it even easier to record everything and store it. The next time I moved and had to dump everything, I carefully checked what was available and still have a lot of these old discs on the shelf, ready for the day I don't still have access to Box of Broadcasts. But they fortunately take up less space than VHS tapes.
I'm even losing many books. If I've read it and it doesn't have some special significance, it's gone. Douglas Adams and Monty Python are staying, Tom Clancy and John Grisham are going. I'll be keeping all of the literature I studied at school and losing all the literature I collected but never read. I've got all of Charles Dickens' novels just to look impressive on the shelf. I've never read them so why keep them? If I get the burning desire the library is always there and it won't be wasting shelf space when its finished. Already some will be pouring scorn on me, but it's amazing actually how much the human brain can keep in store. I don't need to have the volume on a shelf to talk about it.
Later, not even Douglas Adams would survive with everything other than hardback and early editions ending up in charity shops. Most of the books I own now are either Doctor Who, Shakespeare related or about film and although there's a lot in there I haven't read yet. I will. The TARGET novelisations are sat on the shelves above this desk nagging at me.
There are special cases. My Yahoo Internet Life's aren't going anywhere.
Still hasn't and I recently took them out of the box and shelved them in all their nostalgic glory. Of all the magazines of the period, this is the one you would expect to have a collection of pdfs online somewhere.
Neither my Empire movie magazines or SFX.
Just completed my Empire collection, everything since issue one. SFX went, another space issue (and not because of the space issues). Had to choose so kept DWM and Sight and Sound instead. Ironically my subscription to the latter provides access to a complete digital archive of back issues.
But as a trade off Premiere has gone south as have Total Film (except for the earlier issues when it was new and fresh and Danny Wallace wrote for them).
I think I still have the first issue of Total Film somewhere ...
Although I know I need to filter my CD collection for the same reasons as above, for some reason music feels different. I know I'll never listen to that Speedball Baby album again, but I really like the cover. And I really couldn't live without the six minute version of Underwater Love by Smoke City.
Listening to the Speedball Baby album again on Spotify. It's ace. Wish I'd kept that CD. Underwater Love by Smoke City hasn't gone anywhere. Along with what's left of my CDs, it's in a long box under the bed.
Will there be anything I'll regret chucking out? Probably.
No shit.
Now and then my Dad talks about the mint condition copies of Amazing Stories and Eagle comic my late Gran threw out when she cleared out his boyhood things for him (have you seen how much the former are going for)? But almost everything is replaceable I think and there are too few hours in the day to enjoy anything anymore. And besides I'm always more interested in the things I haven't seen / heard / read before than those things that I have. Which is probably why I can't wait to see what Lucas does with the old Star Wars trilogy in the next few years.
You naïve fool. Also I'd forgotten that story about my Dad. That'll explain why I bought him a random issue at a comic mart for Christmas the same year. Much of Amazing Stories is now on archive.org.
But that's a different discussion for another time. For now I'll just put it in that box over there …
It's still true that I prefer to watch new things, partly because I have a decent memory for films, especially those I've enjoyed. If the lockdown variants have been about anything, it's trying to find new things to watch and wondering how far in the past something has to be before I can legitimately see it again with fresh eyes.
Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. Unlike music, film companies still ruthlessly hoard their archives and it isn't yet possible to subscribe to one service and have access to everything and nothing is available permanently assuming it ever is at all. So although I'm subscribed (at last check) to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, MUBI and Britbox, I still ruthlessly have a few thousand DVDs filed together "just in case" and I don't see that situation changing soon. Better Off Dead is still not available to stream in the UK ...
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