box sets

Last night, as it was not the weather for sitting out on the balcony and barbecuing, we returned to the box set of The Sopranos.  In order to avoid plot spoilers, the episode titles are cryptic to say the least, and we spent some time trying to decide whether we had already seen The Strong Silent Type, or had indeed got on to Calling All Cars.  It is about as middle aged as you can get, wondering on a Friday night how far you have got through The Sopranos, before settling down in front of the telly with a bowl of mixed bean chile con carne and a bottle of Portuguese red.  We guessed earlier rather than later in the series, to avoid missing any episodes, and it says something for how well they were made, that I knew within two seconds of the beginning that I'd seen both The Strong Silent Type and Calling All Cars before, and that we must therefore be on to Eloise.  It was more difficult for the Systems Administrator, who has already watched all five series, and had to disentangle memories of something seen six weeks ago from the vague familiarity of having watched it a couple of years ago.

It gave me an idea for an App, which I hereby offer to the world free and gratis, since I am not going to learn coding in order to write it myself.  I fancy a dinky little virtual abacus on my phone, so that I can slide a bead across each time we watch an episode, and another in the next row when we finish a series.  I know I could simply write it down on a piece of paper and keep it near the TV, but a virtual abacus would be so much more fun.  Plus I would be more careful not to lose the phone than to keep the piece of paper.  We have so many bits of paper.

Our latest generation flat screen television with built in blu ray player is so complicated that even the Systems Administrator, who is normally good with technology, has only a hazy idea of how it works.  The Sopranos' introductory music is brilliantly atmospheric and very apt, but not short, and once we'd listened to all of it and I'd instantly recognised that I'd already seen the opening dream sequence of a blue hairy caterpillar crawling down the back of a man's head, the machine refused to go back to the episodes index.  When eventually the SA persuaded it to play the next episode we had to listen to the entire theme tune again, then had the same problem getting back to the index. At one point the TV decided that we did not want to watch a DVD at all, but Gardeners' World on BBC2, and the SA was reduced to trying my suggestion of ejecting the disc and putting it in again. As a result I'd finished my chile before we started viewing the episode we actually wanted.

I have absolutely no idea how the TV works.  We must have had some instructions once, but where they are now is anybody's guess.  Once, when the Systems Administrator was away, I managed to play Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves, and was pathetically grateful when the machine worked, and I have occasionally played CDs, but if the disc I've inserted doesn't automatically start I'm more or less lost.  A drawback of being childless is that you cannot fall back on the usual middle aged support plan with digital technology, which is to ask someone between the ages of 3 and 13 for help.