Obsolete, but not forgotten as video credits roll

Far from it. For I never, ever learnt how to set the wretched timer, despite a colleague once giving up much of a memorable morning to show me how.

Yes, he was patience personified. But none of it sank in. Not a scrap.

If there was a favourite film on at two in the morning, then that was too bad. I'd just have to do without, and wait for the movie to become so old that it would eventually be shown on BBC2 one weekday lunchtime.

Hah! No more. For DVDs will soon be deposing the videotape from its throne and I will just have to be foxed by the newest bit of brain-clogging technology.

You know, if it carries on at this pace, events will start to move so fast that there will ultimately be no need to learn anything.

One latest development will be superseded by another in the time that it takes to press "play and record".

So just ask someone to take pity on you. There are always those who like nothing better than twiddling a few buttons while you watch and pretend to be paying attention.

However, when that day arrives, our house - along with thousands of others up and down the nation - will be lumbered with millions of redundant tapes, gathering dust in the corner just like 78rpm records once did before they inevitably ended up in a charity shop.

So, as the Festive Season is looming, let's take a look at some of the movies that, although soon-to-be unplayable, once brightened up many a Christmas at Dun Subbin...

First of all, there's African Queen, made in 1951. Now, not a lot of people know that Charlie Alnutt and Rose Sayer were nearly played by David Niven and Bette Davis. Interesting, but what a mistake that would have been.

Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn sailed in movie history with this classic... along with those awful leeches.

Then there's The Alamo. Over-long, hammy, and impossibly gung-ho, the battle scenes - directed by John Ford - are still pretty impressive. Although I must say that it's a relief when John Wayne's Davy Crockett is pinned to the door by that lance like a chipolata sausage on a cocktail stick.

That was back in 1960. Leaping ahead to 1979, here's a film that is perfect for all those whose tummy is fit to burst after all the turkey and pud. Yes, no prizes for guessing that we're talking about Alien with Sigourney Weaver and Tom Skerritt.

Who needs Rennies when there's unorthodox relief scenes such as this?

Now, being a a bit of a First World War buff, here's one tape that should be saved long after DVDs take over the Earth.

Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front, first filmed in 1930, is very much a conundrum in cinema-lore. To the British, this movie was the ultimate condemnation of war.

But to Nazi Germany, it became a rallying call for a defeated, humiliated nation. The rest is history.

On to lighter subjects, and there's American Graffiti (1973) the ultimate growing-up film. With a soundtrack that's second to none, I would only be tempted away by Badlands, made in the same year, and starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek.

There are shades of Truman Capote here after the star-crossed lovers sign a pact of mutual destruction as they weave a trail of death across the Dakota plains. The late Warren Oates excels as the doomed father who susses out Sheen right from the start.

The 1970s was a fine decade so here's my all-time desert island film - Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon. You either love it or loathe it, but for me, this rake's progress starring Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson and Leonard Rossiter was the late director's greatest achievement, an oil painting of a movie that seems to improve with age.

But it's time for some light relief, so what could be better than The Black Shield Of Falworth (1954).

Now, some say that Tony Curtis never said "all hail the Dook uv Buckinghay-yy-yam" but he did say "yonder lies the cassull uv my fodda" so if men in tights with greasy quiffs romping through the Middle Ages is your bag, then that's joust great.

Bang-bang time again, and I'll never tire of Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde, the first machine-gun fest that actually hinted at what really happens when large amounts of bullets hit the human frame.

Yes, it's a mess. But the film, with headliners Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, strangely seemed to complement 1967's summer of love.

The next big one for me - after The Thomas Crown Affair - finds the delectable La Dunaway starring opposite a smoother-than-usual Jack Nicholson in 1974's Chinatown. The nose-slitting scene must have sent sticking plaster shares into orbit.

Now that's what I call a shaving cut.

The bleak midwinter is perfect for watching films, all cold and dark outside, warm and fantasy-laden inside, as celluloid heroes and heroines parade across the small screen. And who sums up the image of screen idol better than Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke?

Mind you, while some remember the egg-eating scene, it is the image of the delightful washerwoman that lingers in my memory. That Lucille, she don't know what she do...

That was another great offering from 1967, and while we're south of the Mason-Dixon, no collection would be complete without Crossroads (1986). Ry Cooder's lazy score, Ralph Macchio's ridiculous guitar duel with Steve Vai, the pact with the horned chappie... this is a surreal southern pastiche that reeks of bayou mud and 'gater bait.

And so it goes on... my perfect Christmas movie guide. All I need is a month off work and the hours in the day. For there's Deliverance (1972), John Boorman's violent hillbilly thriller... Dillinger (1973), a blood-soaked crime sojourn tracing the rise and fall of the public enemy Number One and, to provide some light relief, Elvis - The Movie, in which Kurt Russell makes a fair fist at playing the rock legend. Uh-huh.

Not to mention (but we will) Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955) The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936) The Three Musketeers (1973), They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), Paris Texas (1984), On The Waterfront (1954), The Last of the Mohicans (1992)... phew. Where to stop?

All right then, how about Zulu (1964) or The French Connection (1971)? Perhaps Marathon Man (1976)? No, not that one. Memories of dentists, too much information, thank you.

Anyway, it's that time of year again, and the cameras will soon be rolling once more across my very own winter wonderland, between the frost-laden hedges lining those lanes of yesteryear.

And we should all make the most of it, as the once-mighty videotape prepares to surrender three glorious decades to the unstoppable march of the DVD.

Some will call it progress. But for me, it just means more clutter as the precious tapes join all the LPs, 45s and 78s in that dustbin called the past. So Mr Director, it's action, stop the world... and let the credits roll.