Thursday, December 30, 2010

Just One of Those Things

2010.
What? Gone already? Cripes.

The year was notable for me as I was able to complete a number of collections. I shall warn you now (with the ever ready 'nerd-alert') that this may get a bit geeky. I know it's a bit pathetic, but it's just one of those things about me that makes me 'me'. Obsessive Compulsive perhaps?

#1. My Agatha Christie collection.



Publishers can be pure evil sometimes. They release a whole range of titles in matching jackets and then, without warning, they change the jackets but NOT the ISBNs. This makes it extremely difficult for the customer to order the missing titles. For a few years, I was missing a couple of titles from the Agatha Christie collection and I refuse to start again on the new-look jackets, having spent the best part of a decade collecting these beauties. For the past two years, I was searching for ONE final title - Endless Night - I even had friends across the globe looking for it on their travels. I was beginning to believe it had never been published in this format as an evil ploy invented by Harper Collins to make sure no one could ever have a complete set. However, thanks to eBay, I finally got my missing piece to the mystery and I almost shed a tear of joy.

#2. My Alfred Hitchcock collection.



This is another collection that has taken me over a decade to complete, mainly because some of the more obscure titles from his oeuvre were simply taking a while to come out on DVD. Admittedly, my copies of Elstree Calling and Waltzes in Vienna are not of the highest quality, but I don't care - I am just proud to own them. This allowed me to work on my Hitchcock blog - http://greathitchcockproject.blogspot.com/ - which involves watching all of his films in chronological order and blithering on about the experience. It's not exactly Julie & Julia but it keeps me off the streets knifing Asian grannies.

#3. My Swing Out Sister collection.



I have been a fan of Swing Out Sister since their "Breakout" debut and even though they've not been at the forefront of the music scene, they have been successful for over twenty years albeit mainly in Japan. Their albums are frequently hard to find, especially here in Australia, so I have had to rely on specialist shops and the good old internet to find the albums missing from my collection. A few months ago, I found the one album I needed - Filth & Dreams - on Amazon "through one of these sellers" and I was so happy. It was released in 1999 and I have been searching for it ever since. It's a superb album too.
By the way, there are a great number of 'best of', 'Remix' and 'live' CDs, but that's going too far. I am content with the main studio albums.

#4. My Star Trek collection.



Woah, I really am a complete nerd/geek/saddo. Yes, I now own every DVD of official Star Trek - even the rather less-good animated series (thanks Joel!)
I had avoided watching Star Trek: Enterprise for many years, thanks to that f***ing awful theme music (Yes, it really is that bad) but when I bought the entire series with some vouchers I got for my birthday, I had a huge amount of fun watching all four seasons - season three is particularly awesome!

#5. My Robert Rankin collection.



When I was 18, I was living in Bedford and having an awful time. I was screwed up and I hated pretty much everything. However, I picked up Armageddon: The Musical in a book shop and I was hooked. For a long time, I was collecting the paperback editions of Robert Rankin's titles, but over time I began finding hardback editions in second-hand shops. I now have every available hardback edition of his books (as far as I know - no one seems to have information about the first four books of the "Brentford Trilogy"(sic) ever being available in hardback. If this is not the case, I may not have finished this collection yet).

#6. My Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe collection.



In my youth, I loved watching 'seasons' of films on BBC2 and Channel 4. It may have been Hitchcock, Astaire & Rogers or Marilyn Monroe... but one which I particularly adored (and seemed to be aired rather frequently) was the season of Roger Corman films based on Edgar Allan Poe stories. There were only seven, but each one is a Gothic delight. Oddly, it took me ages to get a hold of my favourite one - The Premature Burial - as it was only ever available as part of a 'double bill' pack, and that is no good to someone like me who likes to alphabetise.

#7. My Avengers collection



It has taken years for The Avengers to be released properly on PAL system DVD - far too bloody long. However, here they are in all their glory. It's one of the finest TV shows ever produced and, heavens to Betsy, aren't those boxes splendid in their design.
Interestingly, I haven't had to pay for ANY of them. They were all bought with Amazon vouchers or as gifts! (Thank you Rohan, Vanessa, Louise, Adam, Family etc...)

So, that is my year of 'completion'.


***


In other news, let's take a look at the highs and lows of 2010 as far as I am concerned...

I watched a frightening amount of TV on DVD - but I am unashamed about that. I don't have much of a life, but I enjoy the simple pleasures.

I watched:

All three seasons of Veronica Mars (which was much better than I had expected.)

All four seasons of Star Trek: Enterprise as mentioned above.

All six/nearly seven seasons of Medium which I had previously avoided because I didn't like Patricia Arquette's fringe. However, I got past that and realised how much fun the show was.

All nine seasons of Roseanne. God, that show was genuinely funny and good (well, most of it).

All six seasons of The Avengers (well, five and the remaining two and one third episodes of season one!)

Both seasons of the 21st Century version of Terry Nation's Survivors - they really should make more. Oh, and Phillip Rhys is beautiful.

Three and a half seasons of Sliders. Oh dear. I remember this being good. The first season was fun, the second reasonably OK, the third was 'iffy' and season four was absolute trash. I just struggle to sit through an episode.

Oh, and I think I watched all five seasons of Quantum Leap this year too, but I might be getting my timing all wrong as it was early in the year or late last year.

Doctor Who was disappointing this year. Still good TV, but I cannot deny it, I miss Russell T Davies' touch. Steven Moffat seemed to be so much better when he wasn't trying to change ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING! Oh, and I have no qualms about saying it, Amy Pond needs a damn hard slap. I'll slap the Moff while I'm at it. RTD spent five years making us believe this world of science fiction was in our world and made a real family drama out of the show (brilliantly) but Moffat has made it feel like a mere bedtime story set in a different land so I have felt very departed from the show and characters. That said, Matt Smith is a very good Doctor - it just would have been nicer to have Mr Tennant stick around for another year or two to smooth the transition between executive producers.

Series four of The Sarah Jane Adventures was the best yet. Very strong stories and the characters have grown terrifically - considering this is a children's show, it's damn fine entertainment. RTD's episodes were fantastic.

Misfits proved itself to be one of the finest things on television whereas The Inbetweeners went rapidly downhill in its third series resorting too frequently on bodily fluid gags and cruelty to animals. The squirrel scene was the moment I lost the faith.

In non-TV related items, I celebrated my 35th birthday with a Murder Party which went down very well indeed; I won two awards for 'rep of the Year' in two different states; I lost a heap of weight; I went on a TV show; I wallowed in depression (again); and spent many hours playing in 'Monstro City' thanks to the MoshiMonsters website.

As the year draws to a close, I have little wisdom to give. I have come to consider that I am not living my life, merely waiting and I ought to do something about that.

I have also learned that it is becoming extraordinarily difficult to use Kirsty MacColl song titles for these posts... so I may have to start mixing it up and using Swing Out Sister song titles or those of from Beverley Craven's songbook.

2 comments:

  1. They must have been going for inspirational with that Enterprise music, but it ended up cheesier than 60s Batman. It’s a rubbish series anyway, the only reason to get it is for the novelty of having the guy from Quantum Leap as a starship captain. Oh, expect for the special two part episode about an alternate reality where the whole federation is evil. I couldn’t help giggling insanely like I did at that Warship Voyager episode, love it.

    Sliders had such promise, how did it all go downhill so fast?

    You have way too many box sets. Mine are mostly English comedies with a few half finished collections because the later series were awful. I don’t believe in throwing money away for the sake of completing a collection. :P

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  2. "Too many box sets"??

    I do not understand. I cannot comprehend *does. not. compute.* (etc)

    (you get my drift.)

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