Nostalgia

[franceslievens]

A long long time ago when I was an early teen* my parents owned a satellite dish and we'd watch the Astra satellite. While the whole of Flanders was getting hooked up to the cable network to watch vtm, the very first commercial television station, we'd watch those same new-found series on Sky One. It were the days when MTV Europe showed Take That videos, had hit programs like The Real World and Beavis & Butthead, and Ray Cokes talking to Rob the cameraman. This was before all those stations became greedy and asked their viewers for money and we were restricted to watching German television where they're not allowed to scramble.
Although my love affair with Sky One and MTV Europe was short lived (five years at the most), those years coincided with me developing an identity. Eccentricity on being able to watch British television no-one else could watch, was just a small part of it. The whole experience is still lodged firmly in my mind. Especially commercials for unknown British goodies – it's probably the repetition that did it. Still, I get the warm fuzzies noticing an Argos catalogue left behind by a previous inhabitant of the flat, and I must have Müller corner yoghurt when we go to the shop. It's a bit of nostalgia creeping in. Still not buying Fairy. Not only were their adds extremely bland, I couldn't quite get their brand name. In these times it is better to stick to something that's closer to home and environmentally friendlier: Ecover.

*Really I'm talking twenty years ago.

Comments

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Ah, the days of Ray Cokes! I didn't get to see him very often, but I knew who he was. My parents still had a tiny black-and-white television and nothing else, but I was still part of the "MTV generation".

The Müller commercials were especially funny for Germans where "Der Joghurt mit der Ecke" had been in the supermarket for a while already. And then there was Kristiane Backer (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristiane_Backer), who was endlessly spoofed as Kristiane Kacker on our version of Saturday Night Live. Now Kristiane Backer has converted to Islam and Esther Schweins, who had her first break on RTL Samstag Nacht as Kristiane Kacker, is the bigger household name.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

I loved Ray Cokes. Being a bit younger than you I was just the right age to watch MTV Most Wanted instead of going out. He's quite the celebrity in Belgium, because he lived in Brussels for a while. For some reason Flemish television got him out of hibernation: tournée générale (http://tourneegenerale.canvas.be/category/deze-week/) where he travels through Belgium with a Belgian musician to learn all about beer and brew their own. It isn't very good television, because even though they're old pals, it simply didn't work to have that duo on tv. The whole feel of the show is a simple travel show where they give you hints on what to see and do in a certain area.

And on New Years Eve we had Ray Cokes and Marcel Vanthilt reliving their MTV years and doing a four hour stint of video hosting for all those thirty somethings who had to stay in with their small children. :-)