Goodbye 2006

Interesting thing about the past; as we say goodbye to each year there's a whole lot more 'past' to look back on.

I remember in London looking back on 1966. It was the year I was a father for the first time.

The sixties. The music. The models. The drugs. The privilege of being twenty-something.

This is the first television set I ever bought, forty years ago in 1966. How funny that I shall never buy another television to replace my current Panasonic; when it no longer works the internet will be the delivery channel of choice.

But I loved that Sony, the first model of the marque to be sold in the United Kingdom. And, hey, it gave the choice of three channels since it was dual standard. This meant it could receive not only BBC 1 and ITV, broadcasting at 405 line resolution, but also the new channel, BBC 2, with its crisp 625 lines.

Sure, it was all black-and-white (which I actually claimed to prefer for the next ten years) but it was magic. Ready Steady Go was incomparably better than Top Of The Pops. The show aired on Friday evenings with the by-line The Weekend Starts Here!, and was introduced each week by Manfred Mann's "5-4-3-2-1". The Manfreds (top left) belonged to the world of my 'day job' of the time which saw me working for the manager of the band, Kenneth Pitt, who also was the first to spot the potential of David Bowie.

But television was for me above all drama. The Wednesday Play has its place in the list of all-time great television, Cathy Come Home is well remembered by all who were astounded by its daring and grittiness. The Forsyte Saga reassured with its traditionalist approach. Z Cars was one of the first of the cop-show genre and influenced many series that followed.

The there were the annual 'guilty pleasures', one of mine being the Eurovision Song Contest. In '66 it was won by Udo Jürgens with Merci Chérie, which I admit to still humming when the mood takes me. And in '67 there was Sandie Shaw's Puppet On A String in store for us... How tense we were waiting for the scores of the international juries. Who said the concept of interactive television is new?

[Colleague looking over my shoulder reminds me that on New Year's Eve you're only supposed to look back on the past year.]

Let me jump two decades closer, then.

I well recall 1986, the year of my first computer, the Mac 512K with no on-board hard drive. Only now do I note that the Mac's 'form factor' is strikingly similar to that of my first Sony TV.

Did I have any inkling in 1986 that the Mac was a device I would increasingly use to hasten the demise of 'old media' and to acquire the skills needed for the new?

2006, finally. It began with the hope that my 'old media' job would play a role in making our two satellite channels prosper and flourish. But thanks to a maze of irritating dependencies and the uniquely slow pace of decision making in the Sandlands I've had to scale back any lofty ambitions (cross-platform delivery, full-on interactivity, etc.) and settle for the do-able.

But, although it was not one of my targets at the beginning of the year, 2006 saw me advance into 'new media' with rapidity. I found myself wondering just how far one can go without [a] spending serious money and [b] involving a whole crew of other people. Do-it-yourself media has now emerged as my mantra and, in 2007, conversational entertainment will be my product.

If it sounds like the artist in his garret, so be it. As Hogmanay beckons this year I'm sad that I don't have as charming company as I did so unexpectedly and spontaneously a year ago. It's her fault I took the microphone at midnight in the bar of the Al Qasr Hotel and gave a memorable rendition of Auld Lang Syne.



But the weather this year is not conducive to an outdoor lunch in Dubai Marina on New Year's Day; the Shamal is blowing hard and the day's high is forecast at only 20 degrees centigrade.

The Shamal for New Year, another wind of change, perhaps?