People ruin everything

Now I like my movies, but I don't like renting movies and I'm no longer much of a cinema-type person (I used to be, I used to go to the cinema a lot and it's a habit I'd like to get back into). So I'm a buyer of DVDs. I guess you could say "collector". I like buying a DVD as I like seeing my collection grow…piles of DVDs that I feel reflect my personality better than any silly quiz or psychometric analysis could. My mind in plastic form.

To me there isn't much point in renting movies as if I actually like it I have to go out and buy it anyway. If I didn't like it, at least it is still in my collection like a character-building scar. I'm well aware of these new internet-based rental services where you pay a flat fee, select a movie via the web and they send you it out to watch at your leisure then return it. The main reason I am aware of them is that people are always bloody telling me about them! They think that because I like movies these services are something I must be interested in. They don't realise that I'm as much a collector as I am an observer. They drone on about how great they are, "yes..but I don't like ren…" how simple they are "yes..but I don't like ren…" how convenient they are "yes..but I don't like ren…" how you can keep the movie as long as you want "yes..but I don't like ren…" how it's free to send back "I DON'T LIKE RENTING MOVIES!"

Recently…I relented. I was given access to a three month free trial for LoveFilm, and there is a movie that is no longer in circulation that I wanted to see so thought I'd give it a go. Signing up was easy, picking the DVD easy and they had what I wanted. Result! So I tossed a few more movies on my "wish list" that I have on VHS but hadn't seen in a while and didn't like enough to re-buy on DVD. Two days later the movie was on my doormat and I was quite looking forward to watching it.

However there was something I had plain forgotten up til now because I am completely out of practice with dealing with what they call "other people". I had forgotten that I am the only person with any respect for property that isn't theirs. I am the only person who can manage the dextrous task of transporting a DVD from its case, into my DVD player, without first using it to grout my bathroom tiles. And then back into its case without using it to slice pizza. However what was completely new to me is that I am seemingly the only person who has no requirement to place a DVD on the floor and stand on it while wearing stilettos.

Quite frankly I was almost too scared to even put this thing into my DVD player. I had come this far, though, so I slid it in and it played in a fashion but stuttered badly and the player was having a hard time reading it so I ejected it right away. To be honest I think the only person who could get anything from this disc would be a blind man using it as a source of Braille. I imagine there is some quite racy text to be felt from the canyons and crevices left there by the eroding passage of careless fingers.

The disc is now in the return envelope, full and frank feedback on the website, and my subscription cancelled. Other people? You can keep them.