On my soapbox I stand...

Oh dear, there appears to be a bugbear that just won’t leave me alone at the moment. Everywhere I turn I am irked by it and it’s doing my head in. I posted about it yesterday in terms of TV but today it’s DVDs.

HMV has got a massive sale on at the moment and so I dashed in there hoping that there would be something nice that was cheap and would fit in with my gooey, chick-flick taste. There was plenty, but then two DVDs caught my eye: one with Jeremy Clarkson talking about cars (something terribly endearing about him, don’t you think?), and the film Withnail And I. Immediately I wanted them both – and they were super cheap.

I was especially excited about the latter as it is London Aunt’s favourite movie and, when I was 16, I promised never to watch it with anyone but her… and I still haven’t. I’m seeing her today so I thought I’d buy it as a treat.

But…

*squeak of rage

There are no subtitles!

On either of them actually, but now that Top Gear is back on TV I can cope without the DVD of JC.

Not sure if I should admit to this, but I once wrote to a DVD distribution company asking them why their DVD box sets of Dr Quinn Medicine Woman were not subtitled. They informed me it was an extra cost and there was no demand!

No demand?

Did they personally write to every deaf person in the world and ask if them if they were a fan? OK, in all honesty, if they had have done that, there would probably turned out to be no demand – but what about me?

So what if I have such bad taste in TV and films that there is no demand to spend a little more cash adding subtitles – I demand it. Why do I have to go with the masses and watch the mainstream, high demand films when episodes of Rainbow (you try and lipread Zippy) and old series of My Family – neither of which are subtitled – are what keep me entertained.

There’s one problem with today’s rant – it totally ruins my street cred!
Ho-hum…
After all, I am meant to be discussing the merits of art-house flicks over strong espressos in street cafés, not sitting at home, eating Hobnobs and watching season 2 of Dawson’s Creek with French subtitles because it didn’t have English ones.

And that is where, rather bizarrely, the French and the Italians, and even the Spanish save me – with foreign movies. I’ve seen all manner of them, from BonBon El Pero – a shaggy dog story on varying levels, to All About My Mother (my first foreign movie with London Aunt and Uncle at The Gate) and they are always subtitled!
It means that when people start talking about movies on an intelligent level I can join in. Then I kiss them goodbye and tuck myself up in bed with a nice subtitled episode of Sex & The City.