Football induced time travel – disappointing result

It’s fair to say that ‘the footy’ has decimated the TV schedules.

Imagine if you could travel in time though, and watch TV from any era you wanted!

As a TV-related year-hopper, being able to swirl back through the mists of time should be amazing.

Clearly, going forwards isn’t an option – not because of any complicated space/time coefficient stuff, but based on the inescapable fact that TV is generally pretty terrible now, so the future only holds Celebrity Reality Kitten’s Big Brother’s Essex Jungle. Probably fronted by Bruce Forsyth.

This will be immediately followed by 24 hours of every person that watched it sat on their sofa saying why they thought it was fab-u-lous, then a programme discussing why the people on their sofas are idiots.

So, the past it is. Imagine your disappointment if you’d set the controls for TV heaven, but a problem with the time capacitor interface circuit (yes, I am making this up as I go along) meant you landed in 1996.

Having run out of programmes recorded on our digital thingy (it has a name, but I can’t remember it), I hunted in the cupboard the super large TV sits on and discovered a curious, forgotten, device, with a hinged slot on the front large enough to take a book. Some dusty plastic oblongs held spools of dark ribbon, with the curious code “VHS” on them.

After pondering it for a while, I remembered how the ‘video’ operated, plugged it in, and inserted a tape.

After finally working out how to get the TV to recognise technology from the previous century, a visitor from the past burst forth from the screen; Moira Stuart was reading the news on BBC1. John Kettley then told me it was going to be mild with the help of some baffling graphics, and there were trailers for Jim Davidson’s Generation Game, and the camp-by-numbers All Rise For Julian Clary.

After watching what I’d clearly intended to tape nearly 20 years ago (Highlights of the Japanese Grand Prix, where Damon Hill won the title), it dawned on me that everyone seemed to have a striking resemblance to Noel and Liam Gallagher when it came to haircuts and glasses.

The Clive Anderson All Talk show reminded me what an irritatingly smug chap he was, but a cocky, youthful, Frank Skinner made up for it, ripping him to shreds whenever he tried to be a bit too sarcastic about his guest.

It was clearly a more relaxed time too – during the credits there was no desperate attempt to loudly trail the next programme whilst the people who worked so hard to bring you the show have their names squashed into one corner of the screen, as seems to be the norm now.

Ah, 1996. It seems like it was just yesterday. I mentioned this to my Apprentice colleague at work, who pointed out she hadn’t been born then. Ouch.

Set the controls for the 1980s – I’m going in!

This post probably first appeared as my "Thank grumpy it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 20th of June 2014. I say 'probably', because it hasn't appeared on their website yet, and I don't usually see the print copy until it arrives in the post on Monday. If you want to keep an eye out for it, look at the NWEM's columns section here

It a somewhat belated attempt to get with the times (See previous column about my vinyl collection!), I binned the 20+ year old VHS cassette after watching it. It had the bonus of an early episode of Star Trek: Voyager lurking at the end, with only the first couple of minutes missing due to some snooker being taped, as often seemed to be the case in the 90s.

Whatever you were recording late in the evening, there was snooker on afterwards, so you inevitably wound up recording some of it. So early was the Star Trek episode, it didn't even have Seven of Nine in it. A major disappointment for a man of my age.

Next up on the VHS stack was a tape marked 'Live Aid', which was puzzling, as I was living at home with my parents in 1985, so wouldn't have been recording it, even if they did have a video... which I don't think they did at that time. To say they were late adopters of new technology would be a fairly large understatement.

Turns out it was a 10 Years On programme, doubling the entertainment value of seeing assorted pop stars who are still going looking first impossibly young, and then - for bonus entertainment value - ponytailed and ridiculous in 1995 too. Result.

(Splendid CD on the go today. Life On Mars original soundtrack. Cracking tunes, plus some bonus dialogue from the show. Hands up! You're surrounded by armed bastards!)