obsessions

Some people like to do things at the weekend, for a couple of hours inbetween doing household chores, visiting friends and relations, washing themselves, going to the gym, cutting their nails and so on. Others don’t, preferring instead to do one particular thing for days on end to the exclusion of most other activities.
Periodic visits to the lavatory and meal breaks notwithstanding, here is some pointless analysis of and justification for things which have kept me dangerously engrossed for substantial periods of time to the exclusion of all others.

Music
	A feature of increasing age seems to be a general dislike of anything new. I rarely buy new music these days, especially since the heartbreaking departure of Mr Peel last year. In fact, since then I can’t really be arsed with listening to music radio at all.
At the time of writing (Oct 2005), the Apple iPod is de rigeur and I’m reliably informed that podcasting would satisfy my nerdy craving to make lists of my top tunes of all time. However, despite a fanatical devotion to Apple kit in general, I cannot justify replacing my lovely S*ny HiMD recorder [check out my review for Amazon] with a 'pod. So it‘s going to have to be a list on a web page noone will ever read. In no particular order then:

Psychocandy - The Jesus & Mary Chain
Faith - The Cure
Quirk Out - Stump
Live at the Witch Trials - The Fall
Hex Enduction Hour - The Fall
Flowers of Romance - Public Image Limited
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - Public Enemy
So Tonight That I might Sleep - Mazzy Star
Broken - Nine Inch Nails
Rebel Vibrations - Creation Rebel
Drums of Defiance - African Headcharge & Professor Stretch
Songs About F*cking - Big Black
George Best - The Wedding Present
She Hangs Brightly - Mazzy Star
Crystal Days - Echo & the Bunnymen [discography box set]
Adventures in the Ultraworld - The Orb
Bass Culture - Linton Kwesi Johnson
Songs for Adverts - The Black Dog
3 Feet High & Rising - De La Soul
Ultimate Taal - Ustad Allarakha Khan
Drum and Bass - DJ Hype
Scary Monsters - David Bowie
Beyond the Sky - Zakir Hussein

Film
	Whenever the Black Dog comes to stay I spend about two and a half days festering. If I can get it together to leave the house I find that nothing helps me escape the dread torpor better than a good film. In these poncey, cynical and indeed litigious times one can’t even have a fag in the cinema, the seats are often covered in ketchup or worse and people have conversations on their phones during the exciting bits.
So I find myself ordering in food and videos and letting my agoraphobic tendencies have their way with my life for a bit more and more these days. These aren‘t necessarily my favourites, just the ones I've watched the most. Maybe you have too...

Goodfellas - Martin Scorcese
The Exorcist - William Friedkin
Star Wars Hexateuch (Hexology?) - George Lucas
A Clockwork Orange - Stanley Kubrick
My Beautiful Launderette - Stephen Friers
City of God - Fernando Meirelles
Twelve Angry Men
Se7en - David Fincher
Prick Up Your Ears - Stephen Frears
Made in Britain - Alan Clarke
Naked - Mike Leigh
The Great Rock ’n Roll Swindle - Julian Temple & others
Abigail’s Party - Mike Leigh
Blade Runner - Ridley Scott
Time Bandits - Terry Gilliam
Akira - Katsuhiro Otomo
2001/2010 - Stanley Kubrick
Aparajito - Satyajit Row

TV
	Way back in the 80s Umberto Eco wrote an article about the evolution of television (reprinted in his excellent Misreadings) in which he talks about how (Italian) television has mutated into what he calls neo-television. Once, argues Eco, TV was a medium used to depict representations of reality, now it is a medium that depicts representations of itself.
Whereas television originally brought drama, comedy and factual programmes to the public, in the contemporary world it displays an increasing obsession with itself. Television is now meta-television, television about television, its programmatic canon, its actors, characters, writers and so on more concerned with the universe of TV, than it is about the world itself. By way of evidence Eco offers examples: nostalgic programmes about television programmes from the past (e.g. Top 100 Comedy Moments) programmes in which celebrities from other television programmes take part in novel activities (e.g. Celebrity Come Dancing, Celebrity Ready-Steady-Cook et al)) programmes which explore the homes or lifestyles of television personalities (e.g. Through the Keyhole, Celebrity Fit Club) and we would almost certainly add Big Brother to the list - it is a television programme which turns ordinary (indeed people who redefine the term ‘ordinary’) people into celebrities by televisualising their entire existence (cameras in every room - sex, lavatory visits, baths etc. all documented on video) for the duration of their involvement in the show. Being an older gent, I remember when TV was genuinely ace and not the dumbed-down, lowest common denominator, self-referential, anus-gazing crap it has now become (is it a coincidence that British TV went down the dumper around the same time that Nöel Edmonds got sacked from the BBC for killing that poor man by making him sit in car suspended hundreds of feet above the ground on a crane? Which then fell onto the ground?). Here are the ones which have cost me the most in terms of non-attendance at school, university, work etc.

Seinfeld - always popular in the US, now getting a measure of recognition in the UK. The only thing I’ve ever encountered that suggests that the average American might be more intelligent than his/her British counterpart.
The Larry Sanders Show - neither sit-com nor documentary. The first few times I saw this (always accidentally, late on BBC2) I found it funny but in quite a dry, sardonic way. And I liked it. Later it was confirmed to me that it really was a sit-com. Its amazingly well written and acted - the term naturalistic describes it perfectly. The premise of setting it behind the scenes of a TV chat show somehow distracts the viewer from the artificiality of knowing they're watching a TV show and make it very easy to suspend disbelief. Meta-television at its finest. Will probably never catch on in the UK.
Rising Damp - the classic sit-com with a cast of proper, hardcore theatre actors led by genius Leonard Rossiter. Why? The timing, the intelligent script, the technical proficiency of the acting and the sheer inventiveness of the the thing, set almost entirely within a single house.
Have I Got News For You - the sharp wit and repartee of Messrs Hislop, Deayton & Merton has never been matched (isn’t it time the BBC had Angus back?) but Anna Ford, various Oxbridge-types and even arch-idiot and everyone's favourite cuddly fascist Boris Johnson have all made the programme consistently entertaining, albeit for a multitude of different reasons.
The Tomorrow People - as I child I loved being chilled by the techno-gothic, nihilistic storylines. Too good for kids. Best opening credits of every childrens' programme.
The Six Million Dollar Man - cutting edge 1970s techno-schmaltz. I've watched every single episode, ever.
This Morning - like watching a car crash in slow motion sometimes. At others like hanging around with an idealised family you never had. Best presenters: Madeley & Finnegan, Fern Britton/Lorraine Kelly & Pip Schofield. Worst: John Leslie, those foul blonde hags off GMTV.
Space 1999 - stylish, clever, downright frightening at times. P*ssed all over Thunderbirds which inexplicably remains more popular with Joe Public.
Fifteen-to-One - the best quiz show ever. ‘Why was it axed?’ A nation demands.
University Challenge - new life breathed into the format by the irascible Jeremy Paxman. But the questions are much easier than in the 70s.
American Gothic - first new TV drama format for fifteen years. Disappointing second series. Very memorable Southern Teacher.
House of Cards - just awe-inspiring. British TV at its best.
Eastenders - like tea, for which it does shedloads of subliminal advertising, the quintessentially British perennial favourite.