My Sky+ recorder stopped working over the weekend and it made me realise how much I had come to rely on this new technology. Not only is it suddenly quite annoying not to be able to pause and rewind programmes you are watching, but also nearly all my proper TV viewing now is stuff that I wasn't in to see and which I have series linked and can watch at my convenience. So I have been able to keep up with the current series of 24, the last series of Life on Mars and also noticed that ITV2 or 3 or 4 were running Larry Sanders from the start and so I was getting well into that (the early episodes are surprisingly crappy though - only judged against later episodes, still better than most TV). I had quite a few episodes of Voyager on my hard drive, as well as a couple of films I wanted to see and some TV series that I thought I would get into, but have never actually watched ("Ugly Betty" and the Mitchell and Webb series).
Especially now I am going off on tour Sky + was proving almost as valuable as the amount I have to pay for it. But now it has gone wrong and I have lost the stuff I had saved and worse still am missing episodes of series I like.
Tonight I had arranged to go out, but it was the last ever episode of "Life on Mars" - the one where everything is explained and everything comes to an end. And thanks to my rubbish Sky+ I would never (NEVER)find out what had happened. It was infuriating. On so many levels, but mainly because I have become dependent on a new piece of technology.
"Why not video it?" you ask.
Because my video is broken as well and it doesn't seem worth replacing that. All my machines break. Technology is shit. Or I am. One of the two.
I had a meeting down on the South Bank later this afternoon and when I was done walked up the river a little. The sun was shining on the water as it set, the clouds were turning purple, the Thames was high and despite the distant buzz of the city in the background it was very peaceful. All my stresses went away and I felt very content and at peace. I looked at London's beautiful sky-line and thought about the men up in the cranes. Sometimes this is the most beautiful city. Which is impressive given how packed it is with ugliness.
The River Thames is better and more reliable than Sky+. Though equally packed with filth and rubbish.
I guess I will have to buy the "Life on Mars" DVD now. Which I would probably have done anyway. Don't tell me what happened!
