List of the Month - Shameful Pleasures

My blog-friend JES shared with us the other day a few of his 'guilty pleasures' (in the comment-thread to his post reviewing Stuart Neville's thriller The Twelve [UK title; just published in the US as The Ghosts of Belfast]), and he challenged me to produce a list of mine.   As you can see from my post title here, it's that word 'guilty' I have a problem with.  I've never been much of a believer in guilt, finding it one of the most superfluous of the emotions.  I take a kind of pride in my more eccentric habits and preferences, and feel not a shred of guilt about them (well, with the possible exception of playing computer games, that is - I do give myself a bit of a hard time over that on occasions).  If I am wary of discussing these things openly, it is only because I fear provoking a censorious response from others.  I know that these are tastes which are perhaps not widely shared, and which may in some cases even arouse moral disdain or physical disgust.  I know that these are habits which I can really only practise in private, and must abandon altogether whenever I have a houseguest, flatmate, or girlfriend.  At the very least, I fear my friends may be shocked or disapproving - or just disbelieving - of these revelations because they do not seem to be consonant with their general perception of me: surely such a sporty chap can't revel in gluttony so?  surely a man of such culture can't enjoy heavy metal music?  surely such a cinema snob can't have a soft spot for chick flicks?   My circumspection, then, about discussing such matters should properly be attributed not to guilt but to shame.   Here then are (some of) my favourite...       Shameful Pleasures     Computer driving games I have occasionally played other kinds of computer games - role-playing, strategy, shooters, etc. - but soon start to find them terribly dull. Even with games involving multiple elements, like Driver, The Getaway, and Grand Theft Auto, it was mainly the driving that appealed to me about them.  Only driving games really seem to tap into my obsessive streak, my passion for the pursuit of perfection: I love gradually whittling down a lap time, a few tenths or hundredths of a second at a time, over the course of dozens, perhaps hundreds of repetitions.  I rather fear that, after so many years of relentlessly pushing up to, and somewhat beyond the ragged edge in driving simulations (and finding crashing really rather fun!), I wouldn't be safe behind the wheel of a real car now.     Eating ice-cream out of the tub Ah, decadence!  I am quite capable of eating a half-litre tub in a single sitting (although I try to restrain myself from succumbing to such over-indulgence too often).  Rum'n'raisin is my favourite of the flavours readily available to me out here in China; although mango is also good, and I can occasionally get a decent cookies'n'cream.     Eating baked beans out of the can Heinz Baked Beans, that is - the lurid, unnaturally orange and dangerously sweet ones that have long been a centrepiece of every UK childhood, but are apparently uknown around most of the rest of the world.  Intermittently available as a 'luxury import' from certain of the foreigner-oriented supermarkets here.  Eating them warm on buttered toast is, of course, the classic childhood nostalgia fix, an ultimate comfort food.  But for me a very close second favourite means of consuming them is the perhaps rather rarer - maybe even unique? - method of spooning them cold directly out of the can (ideally, with one or two pickled onions dropped in the top, to vary up the flavour and texture).  I have had (female) flatmates who thought this utterly appalling.     Apartment-bound naturism One of the best things about living alone (and on an upper floor, with no neighbours within any kind of snooping range) is that you can spend a lot of the day naked.  I particularly like going out on my balcony early in the morning to do some starkers tai chi - aping the elegant movements of the old ladies in the park below (I can see them, but they can't see me!).  Of course, it can lead to embarrassment when the man calls to read the water-meter.     Drinking in bed Even more than eating in bed, this seems to me the height of cosseting self-indulgence.  I quite often retire to bed for the night with a small can of beer or a snifter of whisky, while I try to finish off a chapter of a book.  There are few moments of more perfect relaxation in my life.  Of course, it does quite often lead to messy spillages, if I fall asleep before I've finished.     The music of AC/DC This is one of those I alluded to above, a pleasure which those who don't know the music will find it difficult to appreciate; and something which many people seem to regard as an unlikely enthusiasm of mine.  I grew up almost exclusively devoted to classical music, an avid listener to BBC Radio 3 throughout my childhood.  I disdained my elder brother's rock'n'roll record collection, most of which seemed to be fixated on odd colour references - Pink Floyd, Deep Purple.  I didn't develop much of an interest in rock music until I started at college (in fact, I discovered AC/DC serendipitously through a fellow student, who had a room a few doors down the corridor from me and was playing some very loudly on the first day of the new term; that was how we met 25 years ago, and we're still best friends).  Many of my friends still seem to picture me as a high-brow nerd; I badger them to come to classical concerts with me, and even to the ballet.  My profound admiration for AC/DC seems to them somehow out-of-kilter with these other tastes.  And heck, even admirers of the genre are sometimes disparaging of AC/DC, suggesting that they are a little simplistic and repetitive, jeering that they have made the same album over and over again (I think I've complained on here before [although I can't now find the link] that Angus only just makes it into Rolling Stone's list of the 'Top 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time'; I'd put him in the Top 20).  Tosh!  They are the best rock'n'roll band ever, with dozens of - quite diverse - classic head-bangy anthems.  And Angus Young is just an exquisite, heavily blues-influenced guitar player.  If you don't get this, you have no soul.     Romantic films And I don't just mean rom-coms here (although I have a weakness for them too) but slushy romantic melodramas - particularly from the good old black & white days.  I used to watch hundreds of old films on afternoon and early evening TV when I was a kid, so there's an element of personal nostalgia tied up with my continuing fondness for this kind of film now.  My heart flip-flops a little whenever I come across a golden oldie like Random Harvest or Queen Christina or Portrait of Jennie in my local DVD store.     Horror films Again, an untypically low-brow taste.  A film snob such as myself probably shouldn't indulge in such trashy delights.  But again, it's a habit I developed in childhood: the treat of being allowed to stay up late on a Friday or a Saturday night to watch seasons of the 'classics' has invested this sort of film with a special charm or excitement that they perhaps don't really deserve.  Yet I'm now so well-versed in the history and conventions of the genre - I've seen just about everything: from the great Universal Studios Dracula and Frankenstein series of the 1930s, through the 'creature features' of the 1950s, to the slasher pics of the 1970s, to today's fixation with gore, 'body horror' and zombies - that I can appreciate these films on so many different levels; I can, as often as not, delight in their very badness.     Blogging Silly, silly habit.  I am always somewhat reticent about confessing to friends, and even more so to strangers, that I am a blogger.  Perhaps this one might be characterised as a source of guilt as well as shame.  I do worry that it's becoming something of an addiction; and I really feel that I ought to be doing something more useful with my time.  It does, though, bring me a lot of pleasure.  And it seems that other people enjoy my witterings too, at least on occasion.     The BBC Shipping Forecast Another of those comforting memories from a childhood spent listening to the radio.  The shipping forecast was usually the last thing I'd listen to before retiring to bed.  There was something amazingly soothing about that incantatory repetition of the names of the sea areas off the British coast, always checked off in the same order, progressing clockwise around the islands.  And what wonderful names! "Forties, Dogger, German Bight..."  I always try and get a fix of this at least once or twice on my increasingly rare trips back to the UK.  I have been told it's possible to listen to it here in Beijing, via BBC World Service Radio online - but I haven't worked out how do do that yet.  I'll have to look into it.  I think it might coax me into slumber more effectively than the snifters of whisky.