While plumbing in the new Humax the other day, separating my Scart from my RF from my HDMI, I stumbled across a modern antiquity. Nestled among the wires was an old orange school notebook, a Summit "rough work book", ruled feint.

Not needed for years, I used it to keep track of the contents of around 35 VHS tapes. Rather than scrawl on every individual Scotch E195 (re-record, not fade away), each tape was numbered and had its own page in the book. I'm sure you had your own schemes but that was mine.

First page, unsurprisingly, is for an obviously well-used tape number 1. Here's what I can make out:

• Tampopo : arty foody film
• One Hour With Jonathan Ross : chat show?
• Sl*** : can't deciper this one
• True Stories : ?
• Halfway To Paradise : ?
• Film 90 : yay for Barry Norman
• Cheers : Norm!
• Jazz 625, Big Joe Turner : nice
• Fry & Laurie : whatever happened to them?
• Wide Angle : local arts show
• Chart Show : C4, I think
• Married With Children : US sitcom
• The Beast With Five Fingers : Peter Lorre horror
• Jazz 625 : nice again
• The Goalkeeper's Fear Of The Penalty : arty Wim Wenders film
• thirtysomething : era-defining
• 1900 : arty Bertolucci film
• That Was Then, This Is Now - Joe Jackson : music doc
• That Was Then, This Is Now - Martin Fry : music doc
• Inspector Morse : Lewis!
• Little Dorrit - Little Dorrit's Story : what the Dickens
• thirtysomething : Michael & Hope
• Goals Galore : local footy
• Video Diaries : maybe Loch Ness bloke?
• World Cup 90 : Gazza and Nessun Dorma
• Hamlet Goes Business : arty Finnish film
• Citizen Kane : arty Welles film
• Punk : music doc

That's me, that is. Highbrow subtitled foreign films, lowbrow footy from ITFC to In-ger-land, a few tunes, some quality drama, and, not forgetting the wonder of the age, the magnificently lowercase thirtysomething. Good times.