just one of them rather materialistic curiosities, look you see. not necessarily a lavish indulgence or act of bourgeois opulence, but also far from a trivial waste of time. well, perhaps. all i can do is show, discuss and hope that it is all, at the worst, no more and no less of a waste of time than my usual ramblings here.
for two different layers of friends i have around the world, and on either side of that mythical equator our society places such video on, i suppose the abiding image people have of me is video. not just any video, really, but them splendid vhs tapes which revolutionised our lives, making it possible to watch films (and related) whenever we so wished, so long as we were at home or at a place with a video machine. and a tape.
much of my association with video tape comes from one notorious, infamous perhaps, edition of News At Ten. yes, i was one of those peculiar children who for some reason followed the news. anyway, on one episode, they did a "shocking expose" on how easy it was to do something called "pirate". it showed how easy it was to connect two cassette (tape) decks to pirate computer games, it showed how simple it was to connect two video machines to pirate videos off of the video shop. they presented this as a shocking and very, very bad thing; i saw it as excellent and a very, very good thing.
the point here, moving away from anything too incriminating, would be that in my life i have encountered a good many video cassettes. loads indeed, as point of fact. but in all of my time, and in all of my adventures, i had not previously seen anything like the above video tape, presented for your pleasure in the highly pleasurable and pleasant Commodore 64 mode.
at a glance you may well say "what is he on about, that is just a Beta cassette". you would be forgiven for this, for that is all i saw when i first saw it. the truth, though, is that this happens to be a most curious and interesting looking VHS tape. stick with this, you shall see. well, if you are interested in this sort of thing. no, not that sort of thing, so to speak, but as it happens that does feature.
it was never really the case that "gimmicks" came in to the world or realm of VHS, or home video. little changed about the design and appearance. oh, sure, you may think that when they changed the colour of the cassettes, or had a different "bail bar" at the top protecting the tape, that was some sort of gimmick or marketing strategy. alas, no, it was a simple way of trying to thwart piracy, to easily identify when rental shops or stores what sold tapes were dealing with bootleg copies.
above, then, is a view of the rear of the video tape. you are most welcome to take a tape measure or similar to the above, but for the trained or familiar eye it is clear that this is very much a VHS cassette, despite the quasi Beta appearance of the front or top part.
what are the most interesting elements about the back of this video tape? perhaps it is best for you to decide that, internally if you like but vocalise if you will. for me it is the octagon shaped holes for the spools, as opposed to the standard round ones. go big or go home seems to have been the idea of the people who made this cassette.
indeed, as for those who did make it, you should be able to make out there that it was, as point of fact, made in Ireland, to be sure. for all i know, then, whilst this tape might be quite common and was once the norm in Ireland. i simply do not know. other than not having made it to Ireland in my travels, the only person i know off of Ireland that reads this blog from time to time is Bono out of U2. when he does comment, video tapes just don't come into it.
something that makes this tape even more excellent than the appearance is that which is on it. yes, oh yes indeed, there is some of that sort of thing housed on it. i do indeed mean filth. mucky pictures, obscenities, that sort of thing. no i am not going to share any images here, and yes, honest, i only bought it for the appearance, really. sure.
most who i have shown this video cassette to, which would pretty much be my (considerably) better half until i wrote this, are most impressed with the "pac man" transparent casing. should that be the element, or indeed aspect, you like the most, then that's no problem.
right, that would be that. my most earnest and greatest thanks to the person who provided me with the tape, for an exceptionally reasonable cost. worth the coins alone just to showcase it here; the material on the tape itself very much a bonus.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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