THROWBACK THURSDAY: Terminus Turkey For Christmas

My most unexpected Christmas present in 2020 a DVD (and VHS tape) of Terminus, an obscure Karen Allen film I'd been hunting for.

Knowing I was on the lookout for this B-movie from 1987, my best mate Paul had scanned the world for a VHS tape of the film and then he, with an assist from Rachel, had had it transferred to DVD for my enjoyment.

While my expectations for the movie were tempered by the obvious "80s-ness" of its Mad Max-style narrative, I was still excited by the prospect of viewing a genre movie starring my first - and most enduring - celebrity crush.

Imagine you were a massive Janet Leigh fan in the 1960s and you'd heard of her new film, Psycho...

That's exactly the bait-and-switch that Terminus pulls. Spoilers for a three decades old B-movie, but Karen's character, Gus, gets killed off at the end of the first act.

But there's nothing Hitchcockian about Terminus, and, anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Picture an ill-defined, possibly post-apocalyptic 2037. America seems to have been divided up into different countries or something, but, anyway, there's this new "game" that features a truck driver being deposited in a random location and then having to take their rig west to "the end of the line"... for reasons.

Gus (Karen Allen) is driving one such big rig, but is being assisted by a freaky computer system that communicates through a disturbing interface that manifests as a rubbery human mouth operated by metallic rods.

Surely only a masochistic pervert would design a computer interface like this? Not a child...

This computer, Monster, was programmed by a child genius, Mati (Gabriel Damon), as a way to prove his worth to some super-shady subterranean scientists, fronted by The Doctor (Jürgen Prochnow, of In The Mouth of Madness, the truest Lovecraftian horror yet committed to celluloid).

There's a whole sub-plot/theme about cloning here with The Doctor as well as one of the major henchvillains, The Driver of The Yellow Truck, being clones of the "unseen" big boss, Sir.

As an aside, the Yellow Truck can turn itself invisible... but that major scientific breakthrough gains no traction in the story.

Mati the boy genius is a clone as well. Is he meant to be a young Jürgen Prochnow? I like to think so, but who knows.

Anyway Gus, being chased by government forces (aka Greys) and having crashed her way through an innocent civilian village en route, ends up captured by some rando thugs and thrown into prison with one-handed tough guy Stump (Johnny Hallyday). 

They fall in love. Naturally. 

Gus gets taken away by these minor league baddies and tortured, but not really tortured. She dies anyway, having bequeathed her truck to Stump (who she'd met the night before).

Stump - having nothing better to do - then opts to finish "the game", with escaped slave, Princess (Julie Glenn), as his co-pilot. This little girl, co-incidentally, is Mati's "sister" and another clone.

Terminus is so 1980's sci-fi it hurts. A mess of dreadful dialogue, lurching from cliché to just plain nonsense, brutal editing that makes events just happen rather than adeptly segueing into them, and creaky special effects make this a drinking game waiting to happen.

Superficially, it's trying to remake 1981's Mad Max II: The Road Warrior with the resources of Mad Max.

A jumble of seemingly undeveloped plot threads woven through with some vehicle stunts and half-hearted fight scenes make a hilariously bad - but nonetheless enjoyable in its awfulness - movie.

And it all builds up to a Deathstalker-style climax where Sir declares he is escaping to somewhere no one can touch him and promptly explodes for no readily explainable reason.

Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted that I got to see Terminus.

There are certainly elements of this 85-minute French-German co-production that could have elevated it above its trashy period peers: such as the whole cloning sub-plot that, as is, is just colour but could have gone in interesting directions.

I also, kind of, reluctantly, admire the bait-and-switch with Gus. As limply as it is executed.

But conversely, it's also rather insulting that even more open-minded European filmmakers didn't believe audiences could handle a post-Raiders of The Lost Ark Karen Allen as the action lead of a sci-fi movie.

What we see of Gus - right up until she, bizarrely, steps out of her truck to face the army of hoodlums who bar the road to her - is really spunky and engaging.

More so, I would say, than uncharismatic French rock-and-roller Johnny Hallyday, sporting a Billy Idol hairdo and possibly some ill-defined cinematic PTSD. 

By no definition of the term could Terminus be considered a good film, but I'm still deliriously happy to have it now in my collection.

Primarily for the Karen Allen-ness of it (all be it rather truncated), but also because it's so totally bonkers (some of which can be attributed to its translation into English, no doubt) that it will stay with me way longer than a lot of the current cookie cutter Hollywood fare that gets churned out.

Among all its randomness, it's also worth noting that Terminus boasts a theme tune by none other than the legendary Stan Ridgway (of Camouflage fame), which was a nice surprise.

My Christmas present from Paul

Sword Of The Barbarians (1982)

 
There is something quite delicious about watching a crappy old swords and sorcery B-movie on VHS cassette, that certain - almost illicit - frisson of knowing that this movie is so awful it isn't available in any better format.

That said, Sword Of The Barbarians (aka Barbarian Master aka Sangraal, la spada di fuoco) is a surprisingly decent Dungeons & Dragons-esque quest movie.

Nomad chieftain Sangraal (Pietro Torrisi aka Peter McCoy) is leading his people through the wilderness when they stumble upon a group of villagers under attack.

Driving off the attackers, Sangraal asks to be taken back to their village, where he is greeted by headman Belam (Luciano Rossi aka Lou Kamante) and invited to stay and settle down - much to the delight of his people.

However, word gets back to the villainous Nanuk (Mario Novelli aka Anthony Freeman) - enemy of Belam's people and worshipper of topless fire goddess Rani (Xiomara Rodriguez) - that a stranger has appeared in the valley and has been killing his men.

Rani demands vengeance - so Nanuk launches an attack on the village, capturing Sangraal and forcing him to watch as the village is put to the sword and his wife Lenne (Margareta Rance) is cut down in front of him.

Luckily, Belam's daughter, Aki (Yvonne Fraschetti), escapes the massacre with the aid of wandering Easterner, Li Wo Twan (Hal Yamanouchi aka Al Huang), and they free Sangraal.

Sangraal's first thought isn't revenge - he wants to restore Lenne to life, which Aki (who has the hots for Sangraal) says is impossible.

Twan, however, reckons the wise man of The Black Mountains, Rudak (Massimo Pittarello), might know how to do it.

On the journey to Rudak, the trio are attacked by useless bandits, waylaid by the least-threatening sandstorm in cinematic history and finally driven into an underground cave system by a host of extras from Life Of Brian, where they meet some amusingly lame subterranean reptile people.

Finally getting to Rudak, the wizard tells Sangraal that Aki was right and he can't resurrect Lenne, however if he wants to get revenge on Nanuk and Rani he needs to travel west for three days into a forest where he'll find a cavern containing The Ark Of Templars and in that he will find the instrument of his revenge.

It might be worth pointing out, if you haven't picked up on it already, that Sangraal is another, archaic, name for the Holy Grail. 

There's some shenanigans in the forest with a tribe of monkey-people, who are in league with Nanuk, but eventually Sangraal finds the cave he was looking for - which happens to be guarded by another topless goddess (Sabrina Siani) who our hero only manages to overcome with the aid of Rudak.

In the Ark is a humongous crossbow, but by the time Sangraal retrieves it, Nanuk has captured Aki and whisked her back to his own luxury cave where she is held hostage, as naked bait to draw Sangraal in for his final confrontation.

Much fighting ensues and in the end, once he has seen Aki's boobies, Sangraal has forgotten all about his beloved Lenne and found romance in the ample bosom of Aki.

Sword Of The Barbarians is a strange cocktail of Deathstalker and Hawk The Slayer and while not reaching the heights of excellence of either of these legendary movies, it manages to survive translation from Italian and rebranding as an American flick remarkably well.

Large quantities of low-lying smoke in many parts of Sangraal's land made me wonder if it was close to Hawk The Slayer's Realm and Mario Novelli, with all his mwahaha-ing, scenery-chewing and histrionic proclamations is clearly channelling Jack Palance's Voltan, as the barbarian's barbarian, Nanuk.

The presence of a random Easterner is never really fully explained and, unfortunately, the character of Twan quickly deteriorates in to a fortune-cookie-proverb-spouting stereotype whose ramblings eventually prompt Sangraal to cut him off. A harsh word that comes back to haunt him - and suggests that maybe a bit more thought went into this script than you'd expect from this style of movie.

While the creature effects (the 'lizard people' and the 'monkey-men') are very basic, the frequent fight scenes are an odd mix of cheap gore and bloodless acrobatics - yet surprisingly entertaining for a trashy, low-budget swords and sorcery piece.

If you can find Sword Of The Barbarians I definitely recommend checking it out.

It's not Robert McKee or Syd Field, but if you give the script a chance you'll find it hangs together very well and gamers will appreciate the pure Dungeons & Dragons-ness of the whole ensemble (torch-lit expeditions in underground cave systems, monsters, pit traps, magic etc).

Sword Of The Barbarians doesn't aspire to be high art and embraces its sub-Conan silliness without resorting to slapstick or knowingly undermining its world view.

Give it chance - you never know you might be as enchanted by it as I was.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: FrightFest 2010

Last weekend was this year's FrightFest horror film festival in London, which reminded me that Paul and I had attended the event back in 2010.

Of our day out and the two films we saw, I wrote the following at the time:

On Monday (August 30, 2010) Paul and I met up in Leicester Square, London, to attend our first FrightFest - having booked tickets for a couple of world premiers, namely Jake West's documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape and the Ford brothers' The Dead, a zombie film set in contemporary Africa.

The atmosphere at FrightFest was incredible, and so friendly, with celebs, directors, critics and sundry other 'faces' just breezing through the crowds of fans and mingling like they were old drinking buddies (which they quite well could have been).

The venue, The Empire Leicester Square, itself - which I hadn't been to since I blagged tickets for Nick and I to attend the premier of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (back when I was a working stiff) - is about as far from "fleapit" as a cinema can get.

Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape was a superb documentary; incisive, balanced and very well researched.

It also made a hero of Professor Martin Barker (who was present for a Q&A after the screening with several other luminaries) to everyone in the auditorium, and no doubt anyone who sees this documentary.

He was the one man brave enough to challenge the right-wing Thatcher government of the 1980's on the fraudulent statistics it was using to drive its draconian censorship measures through parliament - on a tidal wave of Daily Mail-fuelled ignorance and bile.

The film is packed full of fascinating gems such as the figures of authority unable to distinguish between reality and fiction and self-appointed moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse's nonsensical assertions that she didn't need to see films to know whether they should be banned or not.

Then there was the incredible double-standards of certain bodies (e.g. senior police officers, politicians etc) that declared while they were able to watch these films without being corrupted others (by which they usually meant "the lower classes") shouldn't be exposed to this as it would lead to the collapse of British society.

Or the case that when children were interviewed about whether they had actually seen any of these so-called 'video nasties' they were claiming to have seen films that didn't even exist!

Much was made of the lurid publicity that the small video companies used to promote their wares - almost always far exceeding the actual content of the movie concerned - and the psychological impact of the graininess of video tape that does actually add an air of 'sleazy reality' to whatever is on display.

Certainly Jake West's finest work to date, and with just enough clips from the films under discussion for most discerning viewers to realise the majority were pretty awful anyway and that - surprise, surprise - the moral majority didn't have a leg to stand on.

The Dead, on the other hand, was a major disappointment. A "dead loss", one might say.

Beautifully shot on location in the wilds of Africa, The Dead tells of the only white survivor of the last post-zompocalypse evacuation from the continent, after his plane crashes off the coast.

Rob Freeman is Lt Brian Murphy, a military engineer, who finds himself stranded in the wilderness, constantly dodging the slow, ambling, Romero-style zombies.

Eventually he teams up with Sgt Daniel Dembele (Prince David Ose), an AWOL local soldier trying to find his missing son.

Beyond the road movie/journey premise of the story, The Dead brings nothing new to the genre and every time it looks as though something interesting might happen it gets thrown away in the next scene.

Two howling - spoilerific - examples spring to mind: at one point Lt Murphy is handed a baby by a dying woman and you think: "oh my God, how's he going to cope in a world overrun with zombies, with a newborn to care for as well?" The next scene he's meeting some refugees in a lorry and handing the baby off to them.

Then a little later, Murphy's asleep in a tree (a course of action maybe he should have considered earlier in the film, given what happens to him and Dembele at one point when they make camp) and his gun slips out of his hand to the ground. And there's a zombie walking past! Obviously zombies can't climb trees, but what exciting thing is going to happen?

Cut to next scene, it's morning, the zombie's wandered off long ago and Murphy climbs down and picks up his gun.

The only moment in the film that got any reaction from the audience was, quite early on, when Murphy drives his rusty old car over the head of a zombie causing it to pop like an overripe zit. That was met with much applauding and howls of laughter.

I'm easily satisfied by straight-forward zombie films, I'm not expecting great innovations every time, but The Dead is just dull, with its few shocks well telegraphed ahead of time.

It also suffered from strange jumps in editing that compacted some sequences you thought should have been longer and at other times drew out moments that could have been dismissed in a single beat.

You couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for directors Howard and Jon Ford, who told the audience beforehand how they'd put 20 years into the film and risked life and limb filming in such a dangerous area.

I just can't see this movie attracting even a cult following.

Cult Classics From The '80s That Failed At The Box Office

Some of these '80s horror movies were rejected by critics. Some lost money. Some were barely released at all. And some were so strange that the studios clearly had no idea how to sell them. But years later, they found the audience they were probably waiting for.

Another inspirational movie list from the Luminism channel.

Little-Known Stop-Motion Monster Movies

Rare VHS oddities. Forgotten fantasy films. Handmade monsters hiding in places you’d never expect.

Today we’re digging into some obscure and little-seen movies that delivered surprisingly great stop-motion creatures, from demonic vultures and clay dinosaurs to cyberpunk war machines and prehistoric monsters.

Thanks to the excellent SirBootis Flicks channel for this selection.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: My Life and Humanoid Ducks In Roleplaying Games

Part of the reason for my passionate support for Darcy Perry's wonderful DuckQuest roleplaying game - and why I backed several of his anthropomorphic duck-related miniatures Kickstarters - stretches right back to my earliest days of gaming.

In the late '70s and early '80s the bulk of my long-form (rather than random one-shot) gaming was with Gublin, a friend who lived five doors down the road from me.

Although created for a specific Dungeons & Dragons adventure at our local gaming club, my enduring character from those days was a female half-elf fighter/cleric/magic-user called Staghind, who enjoyed a storied adventuring career, before becoming a queen of her own nation and retiring.

At some stage in her life she adopted an anthropomorphic duck called Quincy as one of her many children and he taught her Quack Fu. Or she was taught Quack-Fu by a master and then she adopted Quincy. My memory from those days is like Swiss Cheese!

My ideas about humanoid ducks were entirely shaped by reading Steve Gerber's bonkers Howard The Duck comics, rather than RuneQuest (which officially introduced ducks into the roleplaying consciousness).

This is also why I have a copy of this issue framed and hanging on the wall in our lounge with other key comics from my years of collecting and reading. 

Not just because of the incredible impact it had on me as a nascent comic book reader, exposing me to the gonzo possibilities of the medium, but also for the influence it had on me as a fledgling gamer.

Whilst my anthropomorphic duck gaming ended rather abruptly with Staghind's retirement, the concept endured with the help of one of my mum's delightfully random fandoms.

Once I was of working age (and writing nonsense for the local paper), my mum somehow became a massive fan of the late '80s kids cartoon Count Duckula, so I used my salary to ensure she had an extensive collection of VHS tapes and annuals (as that was the only merch available at the time).

These days duck characters can be found roleplayng games such as Dragonbane (from Free League Publishing), where they are called "mallards", and Twilight Sword (yes, this was a deciding factor in me backing this game).

In the latter game the duck kin are also known as "mallards" and were available, in print form (as a set of cards), as an early bird sweetener to entice backers to get the ball rolling on the crowdfunding campaign.

I hesitated and missed out on this bonus "kin", but understand it will still be available to all backers as a PDF. I can't NOT have ducks as a playable race in my version of Twilight Sword!

Outlaw of Gor (1988)

Filmed concurrently with Gor,Outlaw Of Gor is a half-baked sequel with a turgid plot and apathetic acting that makes the original look almost Oscar-worthy in comparison.

It's about 40 years since I read John Norman's Outlaw Of Gor but I'm pretty sure this limp movie bares very little resemblance to its supposed source material.

Set three years after the events of Gor (we learn this from the VHS cassette box, not the film itself) and Tarl Cabot (Urbano Barberini) is summoned back to Counter-Earth, but this time his slimy colleague from the university, the lecherous Watney Smith (Russel Savadier), accidentally tags along... and has no problem adjusting to the fact that the pair of them have suddenly arrived on an alien planet.

Before that though, for anyone perverse enough to want to watch Outlaw Of Gor without first having seen Gor, Tarl has a very convenient flashback précising the events of the first movie - but without mentioning Oliver Reed's rather central character (obviously they didn't want to have to pay him again).

Our less-than-dynamic duo make their way to Ko-Ro-Ba (which is noticeably different to what we saw in the first film), where Tarl is reunited with his love Talena (Rebecca Ferrati), her father Marlenus (Larry Taylor), a village elder who treats Tarl like an old friend, but I'm pretty sure we've never met before (Alex Heyns), and the sinister Priest-King Xenos (a bewildered Jack Palance, who is still not an insectoid alien).

Cabot's arrival at Ko-Ro-Ba prompts a truly hilarious sequence where random people just shout "Cabot" (one of the many bizarre moments in Outlaw Of Gor ridiculed by MST3K). The strange thing about this is until they arrived on Gor, I was convinced Watney had been calling his friend "Kevin", not "Cabot".

However, things are not all hunky-dory in Ko-Ro-Ba. Turns out Marlenus has hooked up with duplicitous Queen Lara (Donna Denton), who is secretly in league with Xenos in a bid for ultimate power (over a single village - not exactly epic ambitions).

Lara promptly seduces Watney ("Tell me, how do they make love on your planet?"), kills Marlenus and frames Tarl.

However, as if one Jar Jar Binks in his life wasn't enough, Tarl is also reunited with the midget Hup (Nigel Chipps), who is even more pointless in this movie than he was in the original.

Tarl and Hup go on the run in the desert - little realising that Lara has sent Ost The Hunter (Tullio Moneta), a monosyllabic bounty hunter, after them with the express orders that Cabot be brought back alive.

Ultimately this fuels a rift between Xenos and Lara (Xenos accuses her of acting like a "bitch in heat") and eventually culminates in one of the most embarrassingly degrading death scenes for a Hollywood legend in the history of B-movie cinema.

Where the plot of Gor at least moved forward, in Outlaw Of Gor it just goes round and round.

If it wasn't for the awful lines and risible fight scenes, this film could almost be called tedious.

But thankfully, it has some wonderfully WTF moments that make bad cinema so great.

A particular highlight here is the character of a nameless slave girl that Tarl and Hup rescue from slavers in the desert (a sequence in itself so laughable as to be a classic - just watch the slavers reaction at the end when they are standing around as their camp burns down around them).

From the moment she first appears among a crowd of slaves the camera picks her out as "someone important". She is then rescued and, in true Gor style, offers to "pleasure" Tarl as a reward. He refuses, because of his love of Talena. Then they are all captured - rather easily - by Ost, who takes them back to Ko-Ra-Ba, where the slave girl gets chained up in the mines... and promptly forgotten about. Never to be mentioned, or seen, again!

All this sets up the climactic fight sequence, which is another masterclass in "what the frakkery" as Ost changes his allegiance for no readily explained reason and tips the scales in Tarl's favour.

As you may have guessed, Outlaw Of Gor isn't particularly well-written. Not only is it full of clunky dialogue (much of which clashes with the themes of John Norman's books), but many things happen without explanation.

The character of Xenos is totally wasted, as all his Machiavellian machinations are just echoes of the more successful Queen Lara's schemes, and the nameless slave girl - who you are led to believe is crucial to something or other - is simply filling a narrative role that Talena could have taken.

I'm also not sure why this merits an 18 certificate, while the original was only a 15. Once again there's no nudity or cussing and the fights are comparatively tame (Tarl has a knack for killing floored opponents by stabbing the ground beside them). I can only imagine it's possibly because of the reasonably protracted torture scene of Tarl being whipped for Lara's pleasure.

The cassette box claims that "Tarl embarks on a series of wild adventures battling the strange and magical creatures who live in this forbidding universe". Doesn't happen. There are no "strange and magical creatures" to be seen anywhere in Outlaw Of Gor... and even "wild adventures" is stretching things a bit!

Beastmaster 2 - Through The Portal Of Time (1991)

Several years ago Rachel's dad helped us wire up a variety of technical doohickies to our TV in the old house, which meant that - after a very long break - we finally had, for a while, a working VHS player again in the house. I know, very retro!

Which brings us to: Beastmaster 2 - Through The Portal Of Time, an old VHS tape I've had knocking about for ages - but with no way to play it.

And you know what, it wasn't half as bad as I'd heard.

The Beastmaster Dar (Marc Singer) is leading a rebellion against wizard-warrior Arklon (a scenery-devouring turn from Wings Hauser) - who turns out to be Dar's brother, for all the difference that makes.

Arklon teams up with jive-talking witch Lyranna (Superman II's Sarah Douglas) who happens to know that Arklon's main weapon, the magical Key Of Magog, can open a portal she has been studying... to a parallel world (not "through time").

This parallel world turns out to be early '90s L.A. and Lyranna also happens to know of a mighty Earth weapon called the "neutron detonator", which Arklon immediately wants to get his hands on.

Complicating matters further is annoying senator's daughter Jackie Trent (Kari Wuhrer) who accidentally drives her sports car through the portal - from Earth - and ends up befriending Dar and his menagerie of animal helpers.

Jackie is captured by Arklon and Lyranna and Dar chases them all back through the portal to Earth - where Dar is promptly arrested by the L.A. police.

This all unfolds at breakneck speed and before you know it, Arklon has trashed a department store and broken into a military base (with Lyranna's aid) to steal the neutron detonator. There's some double-crossing on the baddies' side - and Lyranna eventually disappears out the picture.

Arklon proceeds to demonstrate what a total moron he is, after standing right in front of the open portal back to his world, by deciding to drive back into L.A. - forgetting that his nemesis can control animals (luckily so do the scriptwriters) - and make his final stand in the Los Angeles Zoo!

The dialogue throughout is pretty dire, with Jackie's constant unfunny one-liners a particular nuisance and the animals' occasional "humorous" thought balloons totally groan-worthy, but the pacing and action is solid. The whole "fish-out-of-water" scenario isn't overdone either - with Arklon,  for instance, using his ability to drain others' memories adapting to 20th Century Earth very quickly.

Quite mercifully, no cliché romantic sub-plot develops between Dar and Jackie and, instead, they remain friends and travelling compaigns throughout their adventures.

Beastmaster 2 is a rather camp sequel to the classic original, but approached from a gaming perspective, it certainly suggests a leftfield campaign plot-twist worthy of the great Gary Gygax himself.

What old school Dungeon Master worth his salt wouldn't want to send his player-characters on a journey to contemporary Earth?

And don't worry, the portal has a TARDIS-like ability that grants everyone, from both sides, the automatic power to understand each others' language.

You'll Have To Pry My Blu-Rays From My Cold, Dead Hand

My new Frieren blu-rays along with the Frieren Funko Pop! Paul got me for Christmas

One of the few things I picked up for myself in the Boxing Day/New Year sales this year was the blu-ray box set of the first part of the first season of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End.

But, you say, that's available "for free" on both Netflix and Crunchyroll, so why buy it?

To which I retort that not only does 'solid media' rule, but that just because the show is currently on those two streamers that doesn't guarantee it will always be.

Netflix, for instance, is always churning through its contents and removing great swathes of material to make way for new stuff. 

But, owning a show or movie on solid media (Blu-ray, DVD, even VHS) means it's always yours for as long as you have the means to play it (and you treat the media with enough respect to prolong its life).

Even if you purchase something digitally, you're essentially just renting it.

The Case of The Missing Music

Several years ago I purchased - via iTunes - the album Stand By For Action! The Music Of Barry Gray, which was essentially all the beautifully bombastic and inspirational themes and tunes from the Gerry Anderson shows I grew up with.

A magical collection of music that could very quickly carry me off to my happy place, thanks to some of the greatest theme tunes ever composed: UFO, I'm looking at you in particular.

Only, when Rachel and I went for a car journey the other week and I fired up my "driving playlist" (a mix of tracks from throughout the ages and across multiple genres) I realised that the opening track - Stand By For Action - wasn't there.

When I later checked the listing for my Barry Gray album on my iPhone, I saw more than half of the tracks were "faded out" (see picture at top of this article), and when I tried to click on them a message would pop up saying these tracks weren't available in my country!!!

WTF? I bought and paid for this music years ago.

This being Apple there's no customer service, no recourse for the angry customer to get an explanation.

Then late last year the tracks magically reappeared in my library, without a word or an apology. So now I can start blasting them out again.

But how long before they disappear again? Or tracks from other artists? God, what if all my Atarashii Gakko! music vanished over night? I don't even want to contemplate such an apocalyptic scenario.

But this isn't really a dig at Apple per se, as I love my iPhone (thank you, Rachel!), it's more about the fact that when you're talking about digital media... it doesn't really exist, it never feels truly your own, and it is vulnerable to the whims of the digital realm. 

Combine this with the numerous hic-cups I've had buying movies from Sky Cinema (I've given up pre-ordering movies this way and have reverted to Blu-rays), it's no wonder I'm sticking to physical media.

I know they take up room (not as much as a VHS cassette, of course), but they look cool and have all those spiffy extras that someday I'll get round to watching.

When you have a solid disc - or book, or whatever - in your hand, it's yours until you give it up. No megacorporation can arbitrarily decide - without explanation - that that object is no longer yours and remove it from your possession like a thief in the night.

Admittedly, on the music front I still actually err towards digital these days, but most of the time now I simply stream tracks via Rachel's Spotify account anyway.

PS. I know this is slightly hypocritical as I am a massive proponent of audiobooks, particularly the material produced by Big Finish, which I primarily purchase as digital downloads and play through their own app. 

My theory here is that these will exist at least for as long as Big Finish does... and I couldn't imagine living in a world without Big Finish!