🎞️ Why I Miss My Video Recorder:

I miss my video recorder. There, I’ve said it. I miss that plastic, blinking, beige-coloured brick of treachery and false promises. Modern streaming services are fine  they offer convenience, clarity, and the ability to watch an entire series about Scandinavian detectives who never smile. But they lack something important: the thrill of mortal combat.

Because owning a VCR wasn’t “watching television.” It was a lifestyle. A commitment. A test of character. It was like having a pet tiger that lived under your telly: majestic, powerful, and absolutely guaranteed to ruin your evening.

For starters, the VCR never once displayed the correct time. Never. You could set it manually, you could consult the Radio Times, you could call the speaking clock, you could summon a priest  it didn’t matter. The moment you turned your back, the VCR would revert to flashing 12:00 like a tiny, smug lighthouse. It was its way of saying, “You think you’re in charge here? Adorable.”

And then there was the recording function. In theory, this allowed you to “tape” a programme. In practice, it allowed you to tape anything except the programme you wanted. You’d set it to record the big Sunday night drama, only to discover later that it had captured three hours of Welsh-language sheep auctions on S4C. Or static. Or, in one memorable case, the VCR had recorded the sound of the programme but the picture of a completely different channel, creating a sort of experimental art installation that critics would describe as “bold” and “deeply upsetting.”

But the real battlefield was the tapes themselves. VHS tapes were living creatures. They had moods. They held grudges. They could sense fear. And if you dared to insert one slightly too confidently, the VCR would immediately decide to eat it. Not nibble. Not lightly graze. No! it would devour the tape like a starved goat, grinding and wheezing and making noises that suggested it was attempting to digest your hopes and dreams.

You’d yank the tape out, and it would emerge like a mummy’s bandage: shredded, twisted, and trailing a long ribbon of magnetic entrails. You’d try to wind it back in with a pencil, because that was the official repair method endorsed by absolutely no one, and the tape would snap anyway, leaving you holding two sad, limp ends like a surgeon who knows the patient isn’t going to make it.

And yet… I miss it.

I miss the physicality of it all. The clunk as the tape went in. The whirring sound that suggested the machine was either loading the cassette or preparing for lift-off. The way you had to fast-forward through adverts manually, like a pioneer, bravely pressing buttons in the wilderness.

I miss the sense of achievement when against all odds, and possibly through divine intervention the VCR actually recorded the correct programme. You’d gather the family, dim the lights, press play, and watch as the screen filled with exactly what you wanted to see. It felt like winning a small war. You half-expected a medal.

Streaming services don’t give you that. They don’t chew anything. They don’t blink at you menacingly. They don’t require you to perform arcane rituals involving timers, channel numbers, and the alignment of the moon. They just… work. And where’s the fun in that?

So yes, I miss my video recorder. I miss the battles we fought. I miss the victories, the defeats, the moments when I shouted “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME” at a piece of consumer electronics that cost £179.99 from Dixons.

It was chaos. It was maddening. It was a relationship built on lies.

But it was ours.