Turn the Page

I always hoped I'd never become one of those people that said things like, "you youngsters don't know how lucky you are, in my day blah blah blah!". But when I look around at the array of technology that envelops most of us I can't help hankering back to my youth and comparing the differences.

I can still remember the excitement surrounding the launch of a second TV channel. The jealousy of families that had COLOUR television. My revolutionary Dansette portable record player and buying my first 45s (vinyl discs that played at 45 revs per minute...OK!) and the absolute phenomenon that was the transistor pocket radio. They came with one little earpiece that you could feed up your sleeve and listen to in class...until you got caught. Everybody got caught.

Computers were a thing of science fiction and enjoying a movie at home involved setting up a dodgy Super 8 projector and a roll out screen and watching grainy film or slides of the family's last holiday in Margate.

The one thing this deprived childhood did engender was a love of reading. As a kid it ranged from Beano to Treasure Island, teenage years bought Lord of the Flies to Ian Fleming to Marvel comics and as a young adult it got far more eclectic. Harold Robbins, Albert Camus, Tom Wolfe and even Lobsang Rampa and Khalil Gibran to name but a few.

My one abiding loyalty throughout the last thirty years or so has been to Stephen King. Acclaimed as the best popular author since Dickens by some critics and derided as literary popcorn by others...like I give a crap!

Unfortunately, although I've been loyal by buying each new tome in weighty hardback the instant it was published, I have a confession. Loyal yes but not always faithful.

It wasn't my fault your Honour, I was seduced. As the shiny metallic technology took over my leisure hours poor old Steve was confined to being left ignored on the shelf in his sexy new jacket.

Surround sound home cinema, 500 watts of stereo power, 100s of TV channels, video games and the biggest slut of them all...the Internet. After all , I am but a man. By the time I've watched the latest blockbuster, polished off a couple of thousand aliens, played a poker tournament and updated Facebook I can hardly think let alone read.

This Christmas took a new turn. "The Teenager" has had a part-time job and for the first time she bought all her presents with her own money. This not only represented a handy saving for me but also meant I didn't choose my own gift and give her the money to pay for it. To say she was thoughtful and generous would be an understatement. So there we were exchanging gifts and I was thrilled with the DVDs and CDs I had opened. I tore apart the wrapping on the last heaviest one and cast my eyes on the latest collection of short stories by the "Kingster".

Now it's all well and good me splashing out for a book and leaving it unread but I just can't do that with something paid for by hours of call-center tedium. So, for a change some aliens lived to see another day. The poker cyber-world could survive a day or so without me and off I trotted to bed at a moderately sensible hour. I picked up my new book and for the next hour and a bit I realised just how much I've been missing.

So, to all my favourite authors I'd like to apologise. I can't promise to change all my new found habits and I will probably keep philandering but at least I promise to come home more regularly.