Once upon a time, keeping up with popular culture so you were able to chip into the odd conversation or nod knowingly down the pub was a piece of cake. Watch top of the pops, film 98 with barry norman and keep an eye out for what the cool kid at school who’d just been to florida on a family holiday brought back.
It’s a whole different ballgame now, we all know that, but one thing that continues to baffle me is the number of ridiculously high quality dvd box sets that hit the market – you only have to walk one aisle of hmv to see mad men, the killing, the sopranos, the wire all staring at you. It’s starting to get to me, how can I keep up and stay on top of so much brilliant output? It feels as though I can’t – 24 alone will set you back a couple of weeks and by the time you’ve done that HBO will have probably knocked out another three series that the will no doubt be ’seminal’ according to every broadsheet worth reading.
I don’t think I’m the only one though, I’ve heard a few of my mates this year announce that one their things they must do this year is watch a dvd box set that they feel guilty they haven’t yet seen – the whole thing has become part involvement in culture, part achievement in itself.
So how to not get down about it? how to make the whole thing seem manageable? i’ve got no idea – to find out if any of these are worth watching, you’ve actually got to, um, watch them. ahhhhhhhh!