by Wayne Hayes
WHETHER it’s Woolworths, CDs or Neapolitan ice-cream, every journalist of a certain age is used to knocking out articles about how we’ll miss that thing that’s gone after nobody used it.
But this is my toughest ultra-short-term nostalgia piece yet. Because today, I have to try to pretend that I will miss video fucking rental shops.
Remember them? Video shops? The late fees, the crappy choice, the terrible disappointment of choosing a film based only on the box artwork? Missed them? Of course you haven’t.
You’d go along with friends, but Christ you wouldn’t leave with them. You don’t want to watch this, and they don’t want to watch that, and you end up sitting sullenly through some compromise nobody wanted but nobody didn’t want. Meet Joe Black or some shit.
Yeah, I’m heartbroken. Especially about those corner shops that did a few racks of always the same films, Mac and Me or The Kindred or House, and the soft-porn one you wanted to get but was worried the shopkeeper would tell your dad.
Ah, those three-for-two offers you’d spread your bets with and then be watching Species at 3pm on a Sunday to beat the deadline. Just fantastic.
In conclusion, they were wonderful places that we all love. Next week: remember how great it was that any album older than two months cost £18.99 at HMV? Happy times.
