This follows a lighthearted conversation with a friend, in which we were lamenting things from our past which, somehow or other, seem to have slipped into ancient history when we weren't paying attention.
For example, what happened to:
Comfortable shoes...
Proper, cheap, French vin ordinaire...
Google+...
I'd be interested to get some suggestions for other things which we might miss in wistful moments - the sillier the better, of course.
Hubcaps. The helpful lady who always gave me the correct time when I dialled 123. Floppy discs. That’ll do for starters.
ReplyDeleteHubcaps - that's a goody - I also have a weird liking for the old whitewall car tyres - I recently saw a restored French Talbot from the 1940s - big limo - and it had whitewalls. Great, but not recommended for the farm roads. The 123 lady - I remember when you dialled TIM to speak to a predecessor (who apparently recorded the whole 24 hours in one session). My first IBM PC (which was provided by my work) actually had its operating system on a big floppy, so when you switched it on you had to teach it that it was a computer - don't have many fond memories of floppies otherwise - they weren't reliable, I recall.
DeleteExcellent - that's the stuff. That's what the boys are looking for.
Obvious one where I live would be decent rural bus services :(
ReplyDeleteVery good - I empathise with this one very strongly; we have a nice new railway station in a village 6 miles away - sadly, no-one can really afford to lay on trains which stop there, so as you would notice. Reason is the same as your buses - the all-consuming god of private ownership - capitalism directed at doing nothing at all beyond making a profit.
DeleteNot a nice one, but white dog poo! When I was a kid it was everywhere, my younger dirty sod of a brother used to pick it up and chase all the girls in our street.
ReplyDeleteAlso chocolate tools in the sweet shop. The Saw's were my favourite.
That's gross, Ray, but interesting. I think maybe dogs don't eat cooked bones any more? I've never seen chocolate tools tbh, but I may have hired a few tradesmen in the past who used them! Good shouts.
DeleteDo not get me started.....
ReplyDelete1. Salt & Vinegar Crisps in blue bags.
2. Playing conkers without a crash helmet and Elf and Safety assessment.
3. Actually being excited at the thought of Christmas.
I am going to have to lie down now. (But I do remember white dog poo....)
Thanks Matt - I am now on the verge of tears. Good game!
DeleteWhere does one start. Manners, simple old fashioned good manners. Appreciating and experiencing being at a live concert where everyone was enjoying the moment. Seeing kids kicking a ball around a street. No swearing in front of women. I could go on adinfinitum.
ReplyDeleteThank you Robbie - some heavy hitters in there! One further thing about live gigs which occurs to me is how nice it used to be to buy a ticket in a reasonable manner, for a published price, without multiple layers of dodgy intermediaries creating artificial shortages, and engineering the prices up just to make money - for doing nothing of any use.
DeleteAll good stuff. Sadly we now live in an Lenocracy (Technical term from the Latin, Leno - a pimp). Layers of non productive exploiters between us and the essentials of life.
ReplyDeleteThe white dog poo was prized for manufacturing Kid gloves. It was collected and known as the "Pure". I haven't seen any in a dog's age. Come to think of it I haven't seen Kid gloves for years either.
Thanks for this - "Lenocracy" is a new one to me, but I like it. The kid glove recipe is alarming - I'm rather glad I never had any.
DeleteHow about...police officers, teachers and even the dreaded politicians....who are not all 20+ years younger than I?! Not to mention hair on my head ghat isn't 90% grey 😀
ReplyDeleteThat is a sore one, isn't it!
DeleteFurther thought from me - one thing I really miss is A NICE OMELETTE - it's years since I had an omelette. Of course I could make one for myself, but in a British restaurant or a cafe just forget it. If it's not in the freezer then it is possible that they don't have any staff who could make an omelette to save their lives. Just a plain omelette - maybe a few chopped chives...
ReplyDeleteI have a not quite relevant, but sorta parallel 'thing' Tony, so I hope that you will indulge me.
ReplyDeleteI have made a minor hobby of checking out which shops and businesses are going concerns and those that are not. It began when some things 'disappeared' as they could not make a go of it during covid, but has expanded to consider those shops, brands and institutions that have disappeared in a puff of irrelevance, lack of market or whatever. I am continually amazed at what has gone and what remains.
A 'tangible' example, Nintendo. I was introduced to Mario Brothers by the children of a cousin of my first wife during a visit to Canada in 1990. Fast forward 34 years and Nintendo is still a going concern and a version of Mario is played by our grand children. I find that one particularly amazing in the really fickle and challenging world of 'tech' and video games.
Regards, James
I rather lost touch with Nintendo in recent years - I recall a couple of summer holidays that were rather wrecked by pocket-size Nintendo games, but I am impressed that they are going strong!
DeleteWe have a couple of new(ish) clothes shops in the village high street here, and one is known as "the one that used to be the Trustee Savings Bank" and the other as "the one that used to Woolworths". This is probably an age thing - many of the villagers will not remember Woolworths anyway. Along a similar tangent, I once asked for directions in rural Wales, and was told to "turn right when you get to where the Red Lion pub used to be"...
That's a ripper! I think that we may say the same sort of thing at times. There have been several struggling pubs across the wheatbelt that have spontaneously combusted.
DeleteSince you mention Woolworths, the store in my home town was turned into a kind of indoor market and renamed "Woolies' Market"
DeleteDave - I like it. One scary aspect of this is how quickly people will forget why it's called that, and local historians will come up with some alternative bollocks of where the name comes from ["probably from the OE wulla, a wet valley, or it may have been the name of a local dignitary..."]
Delete