RoyII

I can't really claim that my most recent obsession is particularly new - in fact I am pretty late on the scene compared to everyone else, as this has been around for a few years now:

When YouTube originally burst onto the scene I tended to give it a wide birth, as I thought that the need to spend hour upon hour trawling through other peoples cobbled together video footage demonstrated a very severe need to get out more, but one night I eventually succumbed to it's charms. I am sure you all know the scenario - late one Saturday night I returned from the pub where lot's of K T Tunstall's stuff was played on the duke box. At the time she had just bought out the 'Drastic Fantastic' album, and being a bit of a fan, I googled one of its tracks, called 'Hold On' on the PC. One of the links returned led to the YouTube site where the video was featured, which in turn led to other YouTube sites...and so on. I was firmly caught in the virtual video loop.

Having an enquiring mind, there is always the potential to spend hours on the site. The bulk of the time is spent looking into shamelessly retro stuff. Music videos featuring the red headed 1980's temptress Carol Decker (of Tau'Pau fame), the opening credits of the 'Banana Splits' show, the rather cheesy sounding theme to the childrens TV series 'The Flashing Blade' - all are out there on YouTube somewhere in the ether. Going off at tangents is very easy - one song reminds you of others, which in turn causes more memories to unravel. I remember one site showing a video of Terry Wogan doing a very tongue in cheek rendition of 'The Floral Dance', so the end result can be pretty questionable!

 Carol Decker...out there

As well as old pulp TV shows and ancient pop songs, places are also featured on YouTube. I was surprised that there were so many entries for New Malden, which lets face it, is not the most happening of places. Items covered are shots of the flooding under the railway bridge, footage of the high street, and there are many little vignettes from the proud residents, including a video of three New Maldenites whistling. This bought home how much people want their fifteen minutes of fame, and if you think about it, with all the videos published on YouTube, literally anyone could be on there with out their knowledge or consent. The ultimate YouTube experience would be to unexpectedly discover a site which includes footage of yourself! So far it hasn't happened to me yet but I think it is only a matter of time...