Everything available all of the time

I nearly wrote about this subject a year ago but now Ian McMillan has written a perfect column about it in The Guardian. I’d like to echo his mourning about the loss of sensual anticipation for children and adults when it comes to comics, magazines and newspapers. I would hastily add music and television to the list of sensory pleasures that are now instantly accessible, cheap and throwaway. He used to await Beano, Dandy, Victor and Valiant comics, I used to eagerly await the freshly printed new Buster, Hoot and Smash Hits to arrive at my newsagents on a Wednesday. My neck would crane out of the front window to await the postman deliver my quarterly fan club newsletter.

Fame was only on BBC1 once a week and the stomach wrenching anticipation for the opening credits was overwhelmingly exciting in our non-video recorder equipped early 80s household. DVD box sets, digital channels and Internet TV can immediately deliver future episodes of a TV show in most cases.

Kids no longer get excited about waiting for ‘school’s out Saturday’ to arrive so they can go on a bus and race to pick out a Top 10 single with their pocket money from Woolworths. They can have the track from cyberspace NOW, all the time 24/7 for a few pennies. Where’s the fun in that? Saturday morning cinema clubs used to attract a coach of excited local families. That real highlight of a weekend has gone as kids can now watch scores of American animated imports and movies on-demand from their bed thanks to the remote control. Cyberspace and digital TV gives us all more choice but as Ian McMillan points out, every time we buy a hard copy paper or magazine, something makes us still ‘participate in a timeless ritual’ that recreates ‘pause for effect’ and the excited tension that is delicious anticipation.

I’m still going to still sort through boxes of old LP’s for 50p in my local charity shop. I could find the rare picture sleeve gatefold in seconds on ebay but how much more exciting is it to stumble across it by chance? The bus journey will be worth it alone for the anticipation factor fix.